POLITICO Playbook: What’s Chuck’s Plan B?

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DRIVING THE DAY

BAD NEWS FOR BIDEN — Democrats who were hoping that the monthly $300-per-child checks the federal government started sending to families over the summer would be a winner in the midterms won’t like the findings of our latest poll with Morning Consult. Fewer than half of respondents, 47%, gave congressional Democrats credit for providing the extra cash, and even fewer, 38%, credited President JOE BIDEN. While half of registered voters support the expanded payments (vs. 38% in opposition), only 35% want to make them permanent — an idea Democrats in Congress are weighing at the moment. The payments are set to expire next year. Toplines … Crosstabs

DEFAULT BRINKSMANSHIP — Republicans are set to filibuster Democrats’ latest bid to raise the debt ceiling today, just as Senate Minority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL has been saying they’d do since this summer. But the real question on everyone’s mind right now is this: What is CHUCK SCHUMER’s Plan B?

The Senate majority leader, a political animal to his core, never passes up an opportunity to put the GOP on record on issues he thinks make Republicans look hypocritical. But privately, many Democrats acknowledge this isn’t going to get them out of the pickle they’re in because McConnell is seemingly impervious to shame — and Dems are running out of time.

A few dynamics to watch today:

1) FILIBUSTER CARVEOUT CHATTER: REAL OR NONSENSE? Our money is on the latter. But there was a lot of talk on Capitol Hill on Tuesday about a filibuster “carveout” for the debt ceiling, particularly after Sen. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) sounded ambivalent about it. The issue came up in the Democrats’ weekly caucus lunch, where a bunch of members expressed a preference for a rule change over the tedious process of raising the borrowing cap via reconciliation. By Tuesday night, even Biden was suggesting there was a “real possibility” that Democrats would go nuclear to raise the debt ceiling. More on that from Christopher Cadelago, Laura Barrón-López and Natasha Korecki

Manchin’s office confirmed for Playbook, however, that the senator hasn’t changed his opposition to a filibuster carveout. Even if he did, Democrats would still have to deal with Sen. KYRSTEN SINEMA (D-Ariz.), who’s broadly against getting rid of the filibuster because she thinks it would lead to wild swings in policy as control of Congress moves between parties.

In this case, however, her office wouldn’t comment. Could Sinema get behind a carveout for the debt ceiling? We’ll have to see.

One note of caution for Dems: Just as eliminating the filibuster for court nominees eventually led to doing so for Supreme Court nominees, an exception for the debt ceiling would inevitably trigger other demands. One could imagine voting rights advocates crying foul, for instance, insisting that their issue is worthy of similar treatment.

2) REPUBLICANS SIGNAL COOPERATION ON RECONCILIATION — Some GOP senators are starting to suggest they’ll allow Democrats to move quickly on reconciliation, as Burgess Everett and Caitlin Emma reported Tuesday night. The pair note that “Republicans could ease reconciliation for Democrats by yielding back debate time and smoothing the process in committee.”

From the story: “Sen. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO (R-W.Va.) said that if Democrats fold and go the reconciliation route, Republicans shouldn’t make it ‘an elongated exercise.’ Sen. KEVIN CRAMER (R-N.D.), a Budget Committee member, agreed that he’s ‘not interested in throwing up a bunch of roadblocks.’ And Sen. JOSH HAWLEY (R-Mo.) said that once Democrats choose reconciliation, ‘I don’t see any need to prolong this. I think the important thing is, they take the vote.’”

And then there was Sen. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.), the rare senator who (to his credit) never developed a habit of speaking Congress-ese: “I mean, I’m not going to be a complete asshole about it. But I’m going to make them take some tough votes.”

3) THE PRIVATE FEARS OF DEMOCRATS: Publicly, the party is in lockstep blasting McConnell. But some Democrats privately worry Schumer’s showdown with McConnell might blow up in their faces if, as one might expect, the public blames the party in control for this mess. “There’s no strategy that we know of,” one senior House Democratic aide told us, worried. “It seems like he’s going to try to create a crisis that either McConnell, or Manchin and Sinema, crack.”

Good Wednesday morning, and thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza, Tara Palmeri.

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — VP KAMALA HARRIS will deliver the virtual opening remarks at Voto Latino’s 13th annual Power Summit today urging Congress to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (which was introduced in the Senate as S. 4 on Tuesday), according to prepared remarks. Harris is the point person for the administration’s attempts at shoring up federal voting rights legislation.

BIDEN’S WEDNESDAY:

— 10 a.m.: The president and VP will receive the President’s Daily Brief.

— 12 p.m.: Biden and Harris will have lunch together.

— 1 p.m.: Biden will hold a meeting with business leaders and CEOs to discuss raising the debt ceiling.

HARRIS’ WEDNESDAY: The VP will also meet with the Council of Presidents of the National Pan-Hellenic Council at 2:30 p.m.

Press secretary JEN PSAKI will brief at 12:30 p.m. The White House Covid-19 response team and public health officials will brief at 3 p.m.

THE SENATE will meet at 10 a.m. to take up the SARAH MERRIAM’s judicial nomination, with a cloture vote at 11:30 a.m. and a potential final vote at 2:15 p.m. That will be followed by a cloture vote for the motion to concur on the House amendment to the legislative vehicle for the debt limit suspension. The Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the John Lewis voting rights bill at 2 p.m.

THE HOUSE is out.

PLAYBOOK READS

CONGRESS

RECONCILIATION LATEST — WSJ’s Kristina Peterson, Andrew Duehren and Eliza Collins have a readout of Biden’s latest meeting with Democratic lawmakers to try to hash out a deal on the size and scope of BBB.

WHERE’S THE BIF — House Democrats’ move to delay passing the infrastructure bill may mollify progressives, but it’s making it harder to retain support among the small group of moderate Republicans, reports Olivia Beavers. GOP leaders “say Democrats are only helping their efforts to unite their conference against the infrastructure measure by repeatedly linking the two together,” with BIF’s potential number of Republican yes votes having dropped from about 50 in August to roughly 15 now.

NO REST FOR THE WEARY — Schumer indicated Tuesday that the chamber may plow through its scheduled October recess, slated to begin Oct. 11, The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports.

SINEMA’S TRANSFORMATION — NYT’s Reid Epstein writes about his experience interviewing Sinema back in 2018 — it was one of the sit-down interviews she did during her campaign — in a piece about her ideological evolution.

“After beginning her career so far on the liberal end of politics that she refused to take campaign contributions and wrote letters to the Arizona Republic condemning the very idea of capitalism, Ms. Sinema has gone to great lengths to define herself as the opposite of what she was before,” Epstein writes. “Ms. Sinema has finally swung so far around that the people she used to disagree with are now her allies. Her old allies, who now disagree with her, no longer have any hope she’ll work with them.”

GOOD MOODY — Credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service said Tuesday that it had a “stable outlook” about the U.S. moving to raise the debt limit, Reuters reports.

GAETZ-GATE UPDATE — JOEL GREENBERG, an ally of Rep. MATT GAETZ (R-Fla.) who pleaded guilty to six federal crimes in May, “asked a judge to delay his sentencing until March 2022 as he continues to cooperate with federal authorities,” Orlando Sentinel’s Jeff Weiner reports.

THE WHITE HOUSE

VOTING RIGHTS ADVOCATES ARRESTED — A group of activists was arrested outside of the White House on Tuesday after peacefully demonstrating and calling on the president to remove the filibuster for voting rights legislation, TheGrio’s April Ryan reports. “The small group started their demonstration around Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., and ultimately crossed the barrier at the White House, resulting in them being criminally charged by the United States Secret Service,” Ryan writes.

A HOW-TO ON AVOIDING HAVANA SYNDROME — “National security officials at the White House were recently issued a warning: move away from the immediate area as soon as possible if you ever feel the acute onset of pressure, sound or heat in the head,” McClatchy’s Michael Wilner reports. “In brown bag lunches over the past week, policy staff at the Pentagon have been instructed to report any strange, sudden health symptoms without delay.”

BOOSTER BATTLE — Outside doctors and scientists pressured Biden health officials on a tense call last week to scale back plans for Covid-19 vaccine booster shots for all, saying they shouldn’t go to people who aren’t high risk, Erin Banco and Adam Cancryn report.

ALL POLITICS

DEMOCRATS IN DECLINE — Democratic support in the Midwest declined from 2012 to 2020 in towns that “experienced the steepest losses in manufacturing and union jobs and saw declines in health care,” NYT’s Jonathan Martin reports. “The party’s worsening performance in the region’s midsize communities — often overlooked places like Chippewa Falls, Wis., and Bay City, Mich. — poses a dire threat to Democrats,” he writes, citing a report by Democratic strategists.

NEW THIS AM: NRSC ANNOUNCES RECORD FUNDRAISING HAUL — The NRSC this morning will unveil its Q3 numbers, announcing that it raised more than $25 million. That puts the committee at $76.2 million raised so far this year, which is more than what NRSC raised all of 2019.

BEYOND THE BELTWAY

IMMIGRATION FILES — Arizona Gov. DOUG DUCEY and seven other Republican governors are traveling to Mission, Texas, today for a news conference with Texas Gov. GREG ABBOTT to call on Biden to act on 10 immigration joint policy ideas, per the AP. … FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: The joint policy framework

AMERICA AND THE WORLD

MAKING AMENDS — “French President EMMANUEL MACRON and U.S. Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN met in Paris [on Tuesday] to explore ways to overcome the rift over” the recent defense pact made with the U.K. and Australia, AP’s Matthew Lee reports. “In a French television interview after the meeting with Macron, Blinken accepted a U.S. share of responsibility for the disagreement. [And the two] explored potential U.S.-French cooperation in the Indo-Pacific and other areas in the roughly 40-minute one-on-one session.”

— And today, national security adviser JAKE SULLIVAN is off to Zurich to meet with senior Chinese foreign policy adviser YANG JIECHI to talk about issues related to Taiwan and trade, AP’s Aamer Madhani reports.

PLAYBOOKERS

BIF BUDDIES? — Spotted near the Senate subways Tuesday: Sen. Susan Collins’ (R-Maine) phone screen displaying the contact card of Suzanne Clark, chief of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Presumably Collins’ stake in BIF had something to do with this call,” our tipster writes.

SAD! — For the first time in 25 years, former President DONALD TRUMP has fallen off the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America, with $2.5 billion. According to Forbes, Trump missed the cut off by a measly $400 million.

Chyron of the day, on CNN: “Pence says he, Trump ‘parted amicably’ after rioters tried to hang him” (h/t @amandarivkin)

Taylor Swift has emerged as a character in the (bad) blood feud between Terry McAuliffe and Glenn Youngkin in the Virginia governor’s race. The McAuliffe campaign is going after Youngkin over his involvement in the purchase of Swift’s masters, The Verge’s Makena Kelly reports.

STUFF ZILLOW DOESN’T TELL YOU — A couple in Cottage City, Md., just outside D.C., thought they’d hit the jackpot when they got their new home for a steal … until they realized it was the house that inspired “The Exorcist.” Apparently, a Catholic priest performed an exorcism on a teenager there in 1949.

Kamala Harris has a new YouTube Originals special called “Get Curious with Vice President Harris” to celebrate World Space Week. Trailer

PSL SEASON! — Spotted buying some pumpkin spice coffee at Trader Joe’s on Capitol Hill: Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.).

SPOTTED at Jazz Comes to the Residence hosted by Japanese Ambassador Koji Tomita and Noriko Tomita at their residence Tuesday night, featuring the Bill Charlap Trio: Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Robert Lighthizer, Pia Pyle, Adam Clayton Powell III, Thomas Silverstein, Michael and Linda Sonnenreich, Amy Kauffman, Ken Weinstein and Meryl Chertoff.

SPOTTED at the 2021 Shakespeare Theatre Gala on Monday: honorees Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.); Australian Ambassador Arthur Sinodinos, British Ambassador Karen Pierce, Russell Elmer, Nichole Francis Reynolds, Cedric Grant, Yebbie Watkins and Michael Hardaway.

MEDIA MOVE — Joanne Kenen is joining the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health as a journalist in residence. Kenen most recently was health care editor at large and executive editor for health at POLITICO; she’ll also be a contributing editor for POLITICO Magazine.

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Finsbury Glover Hering is acquiring The Harbour Group, a Washington-based public affairs firm.

STAFFING UP — The White House announced Biden will nominate Shelly Lowe as chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities and Maria Rosario Jackson as chair of the National Endowment for the Arts.

TRANSITIONS — Mike Andrews is joining McGuireWoods as a partner, leading the firm’s Native American public policy work, and an SVP at McGuireWoods Consulting’s federal public affairs group. He previously was GOP staff director/chief counsel for the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. … Jonah Cunningham is now president and CEO of the National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Directors. He previously was government relations manager at Trust for America’s Health and is a Grace Napolitano alum. … Trevor Theunissen is now VP of government affairs at Shipt. He previously was director of public policy and comms at Uber. …

… Corey Goldstone is joining Amazon as a public relations specialist. He previously was senior comms manager at the Campaign Legal Center, and is a GMMB and ReThink Media alum … Shari Yost Gold is joining MikeWorldWide as a senior adviser to partner and CEO Michael Kempner. She is president of Yost Gold Consulting and a longtime Kamala Harris aide. … Eric Koch launched Downfield, his own comms firm.

WEEKEND WEDDING — Steve Guest, special adviser for comms for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Kate Farrar, senior director of development and partnerships at the Religious Freedom Institute, got married this weekend at the Capital Turnaround. They began dating in the summer of 2020. Pic … Another pic … SPOTTED: Matt Whitlock, Tommy Pigott, Johanna Persing, Jake Wilkins, Mark and Lindsay Bednar, Mandi and Dan Risko, Cassie and Max Docksey, Blair and Chad Rhoades, Harry Fones, Michael Joyce, Leigh Wolf, Rachel Lee and Marlon Bateman.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Andrew McIndoe, VP of development for the Heritage Foundation, and Haley McIndoe, director of strategic partnerships for Faith and Law, welcomed Augustus Preston McIndoe early Monday morning. Pic … Another pic

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) … Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.) and Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) … POLITICO’s Cara Collins … WSJ’s Eliza Collins … Jonathan Alter … Artur Orkisz of the American Polish Forum and the Norwegian Embassy … Ben Kenney … U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Evan Williams and Patrick O’Connor … Ashley O’Sullivan … NAM’s Aric Newhouse … TIAA’s David Nason … Darrell West … Stephanie Genco of Forbes Tate Partners … The Daily Beast’s Will O’Connor … CBC’s Alex Panetta … Nicole Venable … Kathleen Connery Dawe of Sen. Angus King’s (I-Maine) office … Ruby Mellen … Ansley Lacitis of Sen. Maria Cantwell’s (D-Wash.) office … Tracy Sefl … Veronica Smith Wong of Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) office … David Andelman … Kristen Gentile of Sen. Bob Casey’s (D-Pa.) office … Mike Friel of the Alliance Defending Freedom … Sara Rogers … Shannon Finley of Capitol Counsel … Tara DiJulio … Llewellyn King … E&E News’ Sara Schonhardt … WaPo’s Amy Gardner … Carlos Diaz Barriga … Steve Grand … Robert Stacy McCain … Wes Anderson of OnMessage … Nolan Treadway … American Conservation Coalition’s Danielle Butcher … Rowan Bridge … James Wallner … Emily Davis … Adam Sneed

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