NOMINATION NEWS — Kash Patel is on track to be confirmed as FBI director in a matter of hours, despite Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) announcing that she plans to vote against him over concerns about his fitness to lead what’s designed to be an apolitical agency. And the Senate HELP Committee advanced Linda McMahon’s nomination to lead the Education Department to the Senate floor in a 12-11 party-line vote.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced on his 83rd birthday that he won't seek reelection next year. | Francis Chung/POLITICO
SENATE TITAN SAYING GOODBYE — Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the longtime GOP leader, will not seek reelection next year, ending a seven-term span in the Senate that made him one of the most consequential Republicans of his generation.
McConnell, who turned 83 today, announced his decision in a floor speech around noon.
“Seven times, my fellow Kentuckians have sent me to the Senate,” McConnell said in his speech, with numerous aides lining the back of the chamber, the AP notes. “Every day in between I’ve been humbled by the trust they’ve placed in me to do their business here. Representing our commonwealth has been the honor of a lifetime. I will not seek this honor an eighth time.”
McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984, beginning a historic career that in recent years has seen him clash with Donald Trump as the president has reshaped the Republican Party.
Attention now turns to the race to replace McConnell.
The top contenders: Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) and former Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron are the frontrunners on the Republican side. Barr, a former intern for McConnell, was quick to capitalize on the news this morning, issuing a statement that he is considering a run for the seat. Cameron, a former McConnell staffer, announced a formal bid shortly after McConnell’s remarks and has long been seen as a potential heir. Cameron was a Trump 2024 surrogate, which could give him an in on an endorsement from the president — though his swing-and-miss on a gubernatorial run dented his political standing in the state.
The insurgent outsider:Nate Morris, a Republican Kentucky businessman, is “toying with the idea of running either for Senate or governor in 2027,” Semafor’s Kadia Goba and Burgess Everett report. Morris is already bashing Barr and Cameron for not being critical enough of McConnell. He could also self-fund a campaign and is “talking with Trump and Vice President JD Vance-aligned operatives ahead of his decision.”
Putting the blue in Bluegrass: While Kentucky hasn’t had a Democratic senator since Wendell Ford left office in 1999, there is renewed hope among Democrats that Gov. Andy Beshear could give them a real shot to turn one of their Senate seats blue.
Beshear is in his second term and is seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party who could run for president one day. Despite hailing from a state that backed Trump by nearly 30 percentage points in every election since 2016, Beshear enjoys high approval ratings. A recent Morning Consult poll had Beshear at a 65% approval rating — the third-highest among governors overall in the country and the top mark for a Democrat.
Speaking of: Beshear spoke to POLITICO’s Elena Schneider at POLITICO’s Governors Summit this morning, where he encouraged his party to “talk to people like real human beings” and get away from what he called “sanitized” language and messaging.
Asked about his political future before McConnell’s announcement, Beshear danced around the question: “I love this country and I hate to see how divided it is,” he said. “If there is an ability or another opportunity to [fix America’s problems], it’s something I’d consider.”
MORE FROM THE GUVS: Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis is all for “making government more efficient” — just not the way the federal government is going about it, he said at the summit.
“Polis — who at times has provided contrarian views to his fellow Democrats, like when he voiced support for now-Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — indicated some common ground with the administration’s efforts to target ‘waste at federal agencies,’ and suggested that states can learn from efforts being made at the federal level to do so,” POLITICO’s Madison Fernandez writes.
And Oklahoma GOP Gov. Kevin Stitt doubled down on his decision to strike an effort pushed by his state’s top education official to require that families reveal their child’s immigration status when registering for school.
“It was common sense. … I thought that my state superintendent was being a little bit political on this issue and was going after some kids,” Stitt said during an interview with POLITICO’s Liz Crampton. “I’m like, ‘Listen, we’re not going to attack 6-, 7-, 8-year-old kids — asking for immigration status. That’s not a public safety issue.’”
Good Thursday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at gross@politico.com.
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More than 34 million Americans choose Medicare Advantage for better care at a lower cost than Fee-For-Service Medicare. But two straight years of Medicare Advantage cuts have left seniors feeling squeezed, with millions experiencing plan closures, higher costs, and reduced benefits. Seniors are already struggling with high prices for everyday necessities; they can't afford to pay more for health coverage and get less.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with U.S. envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday. | AP
1. WAR IN UKRAINE: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy today is meeting with Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, in Kyiv. It comes just a day after Trump escalated a feud with Ukrainian officials that “threatened to derail diplomatic efforts toward peace talks,” NYT’s Constant Méheut writes. But “whether Mr. Kellogg can persuade Mr. Trump to renew ties with the Ukrainian leader is unclear.” The meeting is ongoing and the BBC reports that a previously scheduled news conference with Kellogg and Zelenskyy was canceled without explanation.
Meanwhile, Trump’s turn toward Russia is worrying NATO allies, who fear that the president has “done serious damage to its greatest asset: the deterrence that comes from the alliance’s ironclad commitment to collective defense,” WSJ’s Daniel Michaels and Nancy Youssef write. “Allied officials have said they also fear the Pentagon will pull a significant number of troops from Europe.
2. THE LATEST EOS: Trump late last night signed an executive order designed to target sanctuary cities and ensure undocumented immigrants aren’t receiving federal benefits, POLITICO’s Myah Ward writes. “The order directs federal departments and agencies to identify any federal programs providing financial benefits to undocumented immigrants, while in the same breath acknowledging that under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, undocumented immigrants are already mostly barred from public programs.”
Also on the chopping block: Trump via EO last night moved to shut down the Presidential Management Fellows Program, “axing a decades-old government initiative that has long been celebrated as a pipeline to draw talent into civil service careers,” per WaPo’s Olivia George. “The two-year, full-time fellowship brings recent graduate students into agencies across the government with pay, benefits, training and mentorship.”
3. LEAVE A MESSAGE: After four years of defending the economy under Joe Biden, Democrats, just a month into Trump 2.0, are now trying to turn it against Republicans. “Democratic governors across the country in recent weeks have been using their state of the state addresses to empathize with Americans who say housing, groceries and child care have grown too expensive — and to blame Republicans for it one month into the president’s second term,” POLITICO’s Liz Crampton reports. “It’s an effort by state leaders — whose class include many with 2028 presidential ambitions — to weaponize an issue that worked against Democrats in the 2024 elections.”
4. MIDDLE EAST MIDDLEMEN: “Thanks to Trump, Saudi Arabia Gets a Big Week in International Diplomacy,” by NYT’s Vivian Yee and Ismaeel Naar: “Just a few weeks into the second term of President Trump, who nurtured a cozy relationship with the kingdom when he was last in office, Saudi Arabia’s stock is once again on the rise — even if Mr. Trump’s approach to the region is not always to the Saudis’ liking. This week, all of the diplomacy is in Riyadh, the kingdom’s capital. On Friday, Arab leaders are expected to gather to hammer out a counterproposal meant to persuade Mr. Trump not to deport all of the some two million people in Gaza to Arab countries, mainly Egypt and Jordan, and transform the strip into a ‘Riviera of the Middle East.’”
5. BACKSTORY: “‘You screwed people’: Inside the National Science Foundation’s firing of 168 workers,” by POLITICO’s Corbin Hiar: “The National Science Foundation went beyond the staff cuts demanded by the Trump administration in a move that set off a frenzied backlash at the science funding agency. NSF fired about 10 percent of its staff at the end of Tuesday, removing 168 people who included most of the agency’s probationary employees and all of its experts ... The agency didn’t have to fire its experts but decided to in the interest of fairness, a top NSF official told staffers.”
6. FIRST LADY FILES: “As Melania Trump returns to the White House, she’s winning Chinese fans,” by AP’s Fu Ting: “The two-time first lady has become an online celebrity in China, especially among women. That may be surprising, given her husband’s hostility toward China, but social media posts reflect an admiration for her independence, her taste in fashion and how she’s raising her teenage son.”
7. MUSK READ: “How Elon Musk used X to amplify Germany’s far right ahead of election,” by WaPo’s Adam Taylor, Jeremy Merrill and Adrián Blanco Ramos: “While Musk has boosted AfD’s reach on social media, a data analysis shared with The Washington Post also shows why Musk’s promotion of AfD on X could have limited impact on Sunday’s election. AfD leader Alice Weidel’s number of followers on X have doubled since Musk started tweeting about the party, but a large share of her newly engaged followers do not appear to be German.”
A message from Better Medicare Alliance:
Millions of seniors are experiencing higher costs and fewer benefits due to Medicare Advantage cuts. Seniors can't afford to be squeezed more. Protect Medicare Advantage.
TALK OF THE TOWN
TRANSITIONS — Sohan Dasgupta has been named assistant secretary for trade and economic security at DHS. He previously was a partner at Taft Stettinius & Hollister and is a DHS and Education Department alum. … The Center for Global Development is naming Markus Goldstein and Clemence Landers as VPs. Goldstein previously was lead economist at the World Bank and is an Amazon alum. Landers is currently a senior policy fellow at CGD. …
… Thomas Falcigno is now comms director and senior adviser for Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas). He previously was comms director for Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-Ill.). … Kayla Dunlap is now director of polling and research at CoEfficient. She previously was a senior research analyst at Meeting Street Insights. … Claire Steven is now development director at Sister District. She most recently was finance director for Sen. Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) campaign, and is a Sharice Davids alum.
BONUS BIRTHDAY: Justin Vogt of Foreign Affairs magazine
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