With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine

DRIVING THE DAY

ISRAEL ATTACKS IRAN — Late last night, Israel carried out strikes inside Iran, sparking fears of a regional war. Here’s what we know.

— The NYT, citing two Israeli and three Iranian officials, reports that Israel hit a military base near the western city of Isfahan.

— Numerous outlets report that both U.S. and Iranian officials said that no nuclear-related facilities were targeted. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed as much this morning.

— Iranian media seems to be minimizing the attack. The BBC reports that Iranian state TV featured an analyst who downplayed Israel’s involvement entirely, instead blaming “infiltrators from inside Iran” for the drone attack. After briefly suspending air traffic in several cities, authorities announced flights had returned to operating normally.

Reuters quotes an Iranian official this morning saying there are no plans for retaliation against Israel: “The foreign source of the incident has not been confirmed. We have not received any external attack, and the discussion leans more towards infiltration than attack.”

— U.S. officials were also spreading word that the Israelis gave them a heads-up about the attack but that the U.S. did not green-light it.

There’s still a lot we don’t know, including the extent of any damage or casualties inside Iran and whether Iran’s regional proxies might also have been targeted. But the most optimistic reading of the situation late last night was that this was a de-escalatory strike (if there can be such a thing) that might not precipitate a full-blown regional war.

THE NEW HOUSE RULES — Welcome to coalition government. At least for the moment and on this one key issue — aid to three important U.S. allies facing varying degrees of threats from their neighbors — the House of Representatives is controlled by a fragile, bipartisan, de facto power-sharing agreement.

While Speaker MIKE JOHNSON has relied on Democrats in the past, what happened in the Rules Committee late last night was different.

Rules is known as “the Speaker’s committee,” a powerful body usually made up of members hand-picked by leadership that serves as gatekeeper to the House floor. But Johnson inherited a Rules Committee stacked with hard-liners, a vestige of the wheeling and dealing it took for KEVIN McCARTHY to win the speakership last year.

Rep. TOM COLE (R-Okla.), the recently departed chairman of Rules, defended the arrangement during a long interview in his office yesterday for this week’s Deep Dive podcast. Placing the far-right troublemakers on the committee, the thinking goes, would allow them to be heard early in the process so that spats get worked out before rules ever reach the floor.

It hasn’t worked out that way: Seven rules have been defeated on the floor in this Congress after passing in committee. What was once the ultimate act of party betrayal in the House became routine in this GOP conference.

On aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, the obstacle was more formidable. Johnson couldn’t even pass the rule governing the package through committee. Last night, Reps. THOMAS MASSIE (R-Ky.), RALPH NORMAN (R-S.C.) and CHIP ROY (R-Texas) all followed through on their threats to vote against the rule. But it passed anyway, 9-3, when the panel’s four Democrats joined five Republicans to set up a Saturday vote on $95 billion in aid for the three countries just as Ukraine appears to be on the verge of defeat.

Johnson’s coalition with the Democrats will have to hold through three more tests.

• One will come today when the rule is before the full House and will require bipartisan support.

• The next will come on Saturday when the four component pieces of the aid package are scheduled for votes. 

• And then the final test of this experiment in bipartisanship will come at some point later when Democrats will be asked to help Johnson thwart a motion-to-vacate resolution. 

By that point, Johnson will have relied on Democrats to pass all of the key spending legislation of his tenure, to help him regain control of the Rules Committee, to pass aid to Ukraine over the objections of many GOP members, and to remain in power as speaker.

For Republicans and Democrats who believe that supporting Ukraine against Russia’s aggression is a generation-defining priority, Johnson’s moves this week are near-Churchillian. For his detractors on the right, it is the end of his tenure as a Republican speaker. “The U.S. House is now officially in an alternate universe where the Speaker shares procedural power with Democrats,” Massie said last night on X. (He did not mean this as a good thing.)

We’ll surely be further unpacking the journey that brought Johnson to this point over the next few days. But let’s start with the roles of two of the most important players: JOE BIDEN and DONALD TRUMP.

TRUMP: While the House Freedom Caucus, Heritage Action, Sen. J.D. VANCE (R-Ohio) and many other MAGA-aligned institutions and individuals are organizing against the Johnson plan for Ukraine, Trump has lent Johnson his qualified support. He had already publicly stood with Johnson in Mar-a-Lago and rejected Rep. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE’s (R-Ga.) push for his removal if Johnson went forward with a Ukraine bill. Yesterday, Trump held firm in the Johnson camp when he posted something on social media that attacked Europeans for their allegedly skimpy support for Ukraine.

But a careful reading of the confusing statement makes it clear that he was not opposing further U.S. aid to Ukraine.

Trump intentionally “did not come down on one side or another,” a person familiar with the former president’s thinking on this told Playbook last night.

We’ll see if this holds through the voting on Saturday, when Trump will be out of court and with some free time on his hands. But for now, it’s a significant source of strength for Johnson to not have Trump whipping votes against him or loudly complaining about the speaker joining hands with Democrats to pass crucial legislation that will benefit Biden politically.

If you are wondering why Trump is showing such restraint, it’s worth considering that on Wednesday evening, he met with Polish President ANDRZEJ DUDA, a right-wing populist whom Trump calls a “great friend,” and who leads a country that takes the threat from Russian autocrat VLADIMIR PUTIN quite seriously. Their dinner meeting at Trump Tower lasted over two hours, and they “discussed the war between Russia and Ukraine,” per the Trump campaign.

BIDEN: As for Biden, Adam Cancryn and Jennifer Haberkorn report that the president and his top intelligence officials spent months educating Johnson about the catastrophic risks of failure in Ukraine — and that the warnings reached blinking-red-siren level in recent days.

“Johnson’s sudden bid to deliver aid to Ukraine came days after fresh intelligence described the U.S. ally at a true make-or-break moment in its war with Russia,” Adam and Jennifer write. “The intelligence, shown to lawmakers last week and described by two members who have seen it, built on weeks of reports that have alarmed members of Congress and Biden administration officials. On Thursday, CIA Director WILLIAM BURNS warned that, barring more U.S. aid, Ukraine ‘could lose on the battlefield by the end of 2024.’”

Johnson’s pro-Ukraine GOP allies on the Hill are not eager to give Biden any credit, but some concede that the speaker got religion on this issue only recently.

Jordain Carney writes that “Rep. MICHAEL McCAUL (R-Texas), the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, acknowledged that Johnson has ‘had a lot of pressure on him.’”

“I was with him the night before he made his decision, and I know he takes it very personally,” McCaul said. “He told me the next day ‘I want to be on the right side of history.’”

Happy Friday. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line and let us know how it reads with a “Tortured Poets Department” soundtrack: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.

QUOTE OF THE DAY — NEWT GINGRICH with some unsolicited advice for Mike Johnson on dealing with … well, the current GOP House: “You can’t govern by shooting yourself in the head every day.”

TALK OF THIS TOWN — This morning’s Capital City column from Michael Schaffer: “Federal Workers Are Fleeing Washington. Can College Students Replace Them?”: “The past few years have seen a fraternity-style rush of American universities planting their flags or significantly boosting their landholdings in Washington, including five in 2023 alone … [T]he more interesting long-term question is what this means for the culture of the capital, a place where the downtown office quarter stereotype involves lanyard-wearing professionals who are en route back to the suburbs by the time the sun sets.”

DEPT. OF LIES AND DAMNED LIES — “How to Mislead With Covid-Era Statistics,” by Victoria Guida: “Biden and Trump are both campaigning on warped economic statistics, cherry-picking weird data from the Covid crisis.”

WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY

On the Hill

The House will meet at 9 a.m. The Senate is in.

3 things to watch …

1. The foreign surveillance program known as Section 702 will expire in less than 18 hours unless the Senate acts, and it’s not clear that it will. While senators voted 67-32 to advance a House-passed reauthorization yesterday, suggesting it will ultimately pass easily, procedural hurdles mean that it won't happen before the midnight deadline without a unanimous consent agreement. Getting a deal will require amendment votes, and the problem at the moment is that those amendments might pass — necessitating a trip back to the House and more delays. Expect negotiations to continue through the day.
   
2. Rep. JAKE LaTURNER’s retirement from Congress, at age 36, is the latest evidence that the contemporary House is no place for young, thoughtful men. “The unrepeatable season of life we are in, where our kids are still young and at home, is something I want to be more present for,” LaTurner wrote, explaining why he is bringing his precocious, decade-long political career to at least a temporary end.
   
3. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: Former Capitol Police officer HARRY DUNN is picking up more heavyweight endorsements ahead of the May 14 primary in Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District: Reps. JIM CLYBURN (D-S.C.) and MARC VEASEY (D-Texas) are backing his bid to succeed retiring Rep. JOHN SARBANES (D-Md.). The two Congressional Black Caucus bigwigs join VoteVets, who endorsed Dunn yesterday.

At the White House

Biden will deliver remarks at the IBEW Construction and Maintenance Conference this afternoon. Later, he will travel to Wilmington, Delaware.

VP KAMALA HARRIS will receive briefings and conduct internal meetings with staff.

PLAYBOOK READS

TRUMP CARDS

THE PEOPLE V. DONALD TRUMP — Trump’s uniquely strange life has taken him to far-flung settings and put him face to face with presidents, kings and dictators. But yesterday, a few miles south of the Manhattan Tower that bears his name, he encountered something he’d genuinely never experienced before: A jury of his peers.

The process: “During jury selection, Trump has heard himself described by those under consideration as racist and sexist and a narcissist,” report Erica Orden and Ben Feuerherd. “He’s been presented with social media posts calling for officials to ‘lock him up.’ He’s been told, to his face, that he’s ‘very selfish and self-serving.’ And through it all, Trump has been required to remain seated, not gesturing, not talking and not using his phone.”

The jurors: The five women and seven men selected for the jury in his criminal trial for business fraud encompass a broad cross-section of American life. Trump’s peers include a retired Lebanese immigrant who enjoys fly fishing, an Upper East Side woman who works as a speech therapist, an Irish immigrant who lives in West Harlem, a California transplant and two attorneys.

Today, Merchan plans to impanel the five remaining alternates and wrap up the jury selection process.

More top reads:

• And in Florida … Yesterday, U.S. District Judge AILEEN CANNON denied petitions by Trump’s two co-defendants to dismiss the charges they face in the former president’s classified document case, declaring that federal prosecutors had met the legal standard for the obstruction counts. More from WaPo’s Perry Stein

CONGRESS

NEW THIS MORNING — The House Ethics Committee is moving forward with its probe into Rep. MATT GAETZ as it investigates allegations that the Florida Republican used illicit drugs as a member of Congress and attended a party in 2017 along with multiple underage women, ABC’s Will Steakin reports. “In a statement to the committee, an unnamed woman “says that in summer of 2017, when she was 20 years old, she attended a party in Florida that Gaetz also attended, which featured alcohol and drugs including cocaine and MDMA.”

House Ethics investigators are also “reaching out to more individuals, including young women who were allegedly paid by Gaetz's one-time close friend JOEL GREENBERG to attend sex parties. Committee investigators have asked witnesses whether they had seen or had knowledge of Gaetz using and or purchasing drugs himself.” Gaetz denies wrongdoing.

AMERICA AND THE WORLD

THE GRAND BARGAIN — “The Biden administration is pushing for a long-shot diplomatic deal in coming months that presses Israeli Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU to accept a new commitment to Palestinian statehood in exchange for diplomatic recognition by Riyadh,” WSJ’s Michael Gordon, Summer Said and Gordon Lubold scooped: “For President Biden the gambit offers the chance of a significant diplomatic breakthrough in the middle of a presidential-campaign year … But persuading Netanyahu to embrace talks on establishment of a Palestinian state remains a difficult hurdle.”

On a related note: “U.S. blocks resolution for Palestinian statehood at the United Nations,” by WaPo’s Karen DeYoung

2024 WATCH

MAGA’S LEGAL EAGLES  — Trump's campaign has announced plans to deploy over 100,000 attorneys and volunteers throughout battleground states to “monitor — and potentially challenge — vote counting in November,” Alex Isenstadt reports this morning.

What they’ll do: “[T]he Trump operation plans to deploy lawyers to monitor voter machine testing, early voting, election day voting, mail ballot processing and post-election canvassing, auditing and recounts. The campaign also plans to station lawyers at mail-in voting processing centers and set up a hotline that poll watchers and voters can use to report problems.”

Zooming out: “Trump has privately complained that his political apparatus was not adequately prepared for the legal battles in the 2020 election. … It’s also a sign that, should Trump once again attempt to overturn the election, he will already have in place tens of thousands of workers who could help with that effort.”

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Vote.org is launching a new initiative aimed at registering 8 million voters ahead of the 2024 election — what it says is the largest voter-registration campaign in history. The nonpartisan nonprofit platform is committing $25 million to the campaign in “the single largest dedicated voter registration expenditure” ever, the group shared in a statement: “Already, Vote.org has registered nearly 500,000 voters this cycle, including over 200,000 18-year olds – nearly double the number of 18-year olds registered by this point in 2020.”

TV TONIGHT — PBS’ “Washington Week”: Eugene Daniels, Seung Min Kim, Vivian Salama and Graeme Wood.

SUNDAY SO FAR …

NBC “Meet the Press”: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Panel: Cornell Belcher, Matt Gorman and Andrea Mitchell.

CNN “State of the Union”: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. Panel: Scott Jennings, Doug Heye, Bakari Sellers and Kate Bedingfield.

FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Legal panel: Jonathan Turley and Tom Dupree. Political panel: Kevin Roberts, Guy Benson, Richard Fowler and Francesca Chambers.

CBS “Face the Nation”: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

NewsNation “The Hill Sunday”: Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.).

ABC “This Week”: Stephen Breyer. Panel: Donna Brazile, Reince Priebus, Rachael Bade and Jonathan Martin.

PLAYBOOKERS

Frank Luntz opened up about having a stroke.

Miss USA had a timely photo op on the Hill yesterday.

William Burns blamed Hamas for the lack of progress in peace talks with Israel.

SPOTTED: Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) at the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s “Macbeth” last night.

OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED at a benefit for People for the American Way on Wednesday night at Top of the Hill, celebrating Norman Lear’s love of country by carrying on his work to defend democracy: Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.), Gabe Amo (D-R.I.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Svante Myrick, Shaniqua McClendon, Alex Soros, Kamau Marshall, Rory Gates, René Spellman, Keith Carr, Gayraud Townsend, Raquel Jones, Kristin Jackson and Rabbi David Saperstein.

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Steven Schrage has left his post as staff director of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, where he had emerged as a key figure in tensions that have racked the venerable congressional human rights panel, Michael Schaffer reports.

Schaffer’s Capital City column reported last month on in-fighting at the commission, formally known as the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe: Schrage, a Cambridge Ph.D. hired by panel chair Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and known for his writings about the “Russiagate” conspiracies against Donald Trump, had tussled with his predecessor Kyle Parker, known for his efforts to combat Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Employees learned yesterday that Schrage was out, and his name was removed from the commission’s website. The commission declined to comment, and representatives for Schrage and Wilson did not return messages.

The departure brings an apparent end to the tumult that has consumed the commission — whose bipartisan leadership had long prided itself on comity and clarity on the threat posed by Russia — just as its old mission of pushing democracy in Eastern Europe seemed crucial again. According to the website, Parker remains on staff.

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Rubí Martínez is now deputy managing director of the Climate Power En Acción project at Climate Power. She previously was comms manager of energy transition at Climate Nexus.

MEDIA MOVES — Haydé Adams is now the director of media and editorial services at The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. She previously was an international broadcaster and multimedia producer at Voice of America. … Zachary Tracer is now senior editor of business and policy at STAT. He previously was deputy editor of investigations at Business Insider.

TRANSITIONS — The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights has added Alejandra Montoya-Boyer as senior director for the Center for Civil Rights and Technology and Mariah Wildgen as senior manager for strategic comms. Montoya-Boyer previously was director of policy at Prosperity Now. Wildgen previously was an account director at Fenton.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Army Secretary Christine Wormuth … NBC’s Sheinelle Jones ... CNN’s Emily Kuhn … POLITICO’s Kareem Payne and Grecia Rayme ... Mark Rusthoven … Bloomberg’s Felix Gillette ... Sarah Flaim ... Jonathan Battaglia … MPA’s Kathy Grant … Louie Agnello … Katie Delzell of Beacon Consulting … Woolf Strategy’s Courtney Sieloff … Tory Brown … Ron Kaufman … Laura Lee Burkett … Bob Evans of Del. Stacey Plaskett’s (D-U.S. Virgin Islands) office … Vic Beck of Northrop Grumman … Claire Murray … Dustin Brandenburg … Lizzy Demaree … Orde Kittrie … Alleigh Marré of Free to Learn and American Parents Coalition … Prime Transatlantic’s John Schmitz … Ryan Nabil … Samantha Staples of the Society for Neuroscience … Ally Schmeiser

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