POLITICO Playbook: Scoop: Trump sends legal notice to GOP to stop using his name

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DRIVING THE DAY

HAPPENING NOW ON THE SENATE FLOOR: The Senate is working its way through final GOP amendments to President JOE BIDEN’s pandemic relief bill after pulling an all-nighter debating changes to the document. Around 10 a.m., they were entering their 23rd hour in the vote-a-rama series.

The long and tedious vote series comes courtesy of some last-minute drama caused by Sen. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.), who decided to flex his muscles Friday at the last minute. That forced Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER to hold open a vote for more than 10 hours — 10 hours! — to try to get him back in line. It became the longest known amendment vote in Senate history, and GOP lawmakers and staff alike (cough, cough Doug Andres…) had a heyday with the “dems in disarray” narrative.

We’re expecting final passage around noon. More on this below.

SCOOP: TRUMPS SENDS CEASE-AND-DESIST TO RNC, NRCC AND NRSC. Lawyers for former President DONALD TRUMP sent out cease-and-desist letters Friday to the three largest fundraising entities for the Republican Party — the RNC, NRCC and NRSC — for using his name and likeness on fundraising emails and merchandise, a Trump adviser tells Playbook.

We reported yesterday that Trump was furious that his name has been bandied about by organizations that help Republicans who voted to impeach him — without his permission. Trump, who made his fortune in licensing, has always been sensitive to how his name has been used to fundraise and support members, even while in office.

On Friday, the RNC sent out two emails asking supporters to donate as a way to add their name to a “thank you” card for Trump. “President Trump will ALWAYS stand up for the American People, and I just thought of the perfect way for you to show that you support him!” the email states. “As one of President Trump’s MOST LOYAL supporters, I think that YOU, deserve the great honor of adding your name to the Official Trump ‘Thank You’ Card.” A follow-up email was sent hours later to “President Trump’s TOP supporters” warning of a deadline of 10 hours to get their names on the card.

None of the committees returned a request for comment. But privately GOP campaign types say it’s impossible not to use Trump’s name, as his policies are so popular with the base. If Trump really wants to help flip Congress, they argue he should be more generous. His team, however, sees this differently.

“President Trump remains committed to the Republican Party and electing America First conservatives, but that doesn’t give anyone - friend or foe - permission to use his likeness without explicit approval,” said a Trump adviser.

SPEAKING OF THE NRCC … Playbook also obtained the House campaign committee’s most recent batch of internal polling in their bid to flip the chamber. Now, take this with a grain of salt of course. It’s done by their own pollsters with an obvious political bend, and it’s incredibly early. But Republicans in the memo say they’re in “good shape” to take the majority, particularly looking at 16 districts that backed different parties for president and Congress (either Biden and a GOP member or Trump and a Democratic member).

There, they lead the generic ballot by 8%, the memo says. And they found 52% preferred a Republican who would act as a “check-and-balance” on Biden and Speaker NANCY PELOSI over 40% who’d rather have a Democrat helping Biden pass their agenda. The results.

VOTE-A-RAMA DRAMA …

MANCHIN’S GAMBIT — “‘I have no idea what he’s doing’: Manchin perplexes with Covid aid power play,” by Burgess Everett and Marianne LeVine: “The Senate was more than two hours into a vote on Friday afternoon as Jon Tester and several fellow Democrats pleaded with Joe Manchin. The voluble West Virginian was talking with his colleagues, but even after Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) implored him to move forward on a compromise approach to President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid aid bill, she and Tester weren’t getting anywhere with Manchin. …

“In the end, it took a direct call from President Biden, a meeting with Schumer and significant concessions to get Manchin on board. He trimmed several weeks of unemployment benefits off of Sen. Tom Carper’s (D-Del.) compromise amendment from earlier in the day and added a $150,000 cap to the proposal’s tax deduction for up to $10,200 in unemployment benefits.”

THE LATEST — “Senate poised to pass $1.9 trillion Covid aid bill,”by Caitlin Emma, Marianne LeVine and Burgess Everett

THE NEW MAVERICK? — “Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s thumbs-down on minimum wage vote reminds some of John McCain,” USA Today: “Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat, sided with Republicans and seven other senators from her party to vote down a minimum wage increase amendment to President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill. It was the way she did it that drew condemnation on social media and some comparisons to the late John McCain.

“Sinema stood on the House floor and flashed a thumbs down when her name was called to vote. While hand signals are not an uncommon way for senators to vote, some thought it was callous given the nature of the vote.”

INSIDE KATIE PORTER’S ONE-WOMAN CRUSADE FOR SINGLE MOMS. When House Democrats unveiled an expansive bill last year to cut stimulus checks to struggling families during the pandemic, progressive darling Rep. KATIE PORTER (D-Calif.) realized there was a problem. The single mother of three young children noticed right off the bat that married couples would receive more than single parents like herself — parents who often have to pay more for childcare expenses than those who share parenting duties and who have the advantage of two incomes.

Porter approached House Ways and Means Committee Chair RICHARD NEAL’S office and the answer was less than satisfactory to her. It was simply the way the tax code was written, she was told, the way things were always done.

Now, it’s happening again. Biden’s $1.9 trillion bill includes an expanded child care tax credit that, Porter says, punishes not only single moms, but more importantly, their kids. The added boost starts to phase out around $150,000 for married couples, but for single parents that number is $112,000, even if they have the same number of children to support.

The result is that the additional funding, a supplemental in a pandemic where child care is rare and parents are struggling, will be more helpful for a child to a married couple than one of a single mom who arguably has a harder time.

“It costs X dollars to raise a child — there’s no single-parent discount,” Porter said in an interview. “And so, if we’re focusing on what this extra benefit can do to help children, we ought to make sure that we are not putting children that are growing up in single parent households — that we know have worse outcomes along any number of measures on average — at any disadvantage here.”

She added: “No child should get less nutritious food or less adequate housing or less quality child care because of the marital status of their parents.”

Porter, an acolyte of liberal icon Sen. ELIZABETH WARREN, has taken to TV to try to make her case — one of the few Democrats willing to criticize the Biden pandemic proposal on cable news. She has personally spoken with Neal and House Democratic leaders and is circulating a letter laying out her concerns. She’s started a new hashtag: #singleparentpenalty.

She’s recently been joined by a fellow rising progressive star Rep. AYANNA PRESSLEY (D-Mass.).

But so far, the pleas have fallen on deaf ears. While Neal and Democratic leaders never told Porter “no” in her request to, as she says, “equalize” the tax benefit, they have refused to commit to the change due to the cost.

And the window is closing. In the Senate, Democrats appear to be going in the opposite direction, making it tougher on single moms, not easier.

The situation underscores how a lack of diversity in representation can drastically affect policy. Let’s face it: the tax code was written by old white men, not single working moms like Porter who could even point out the problem.

What’s more, single parents aren’t exactly a large constituency. They don’t have a national advocacy organization lobbying on the Hill.

Still, Porter said she sees her new effort as part of a long-term project of rewriting the tax code, so that single parents no longer receive less than their married counterparts.

“Our goal is to prompt this awareness and discussion,” she said. “It’s even to ask the question and to have the debate. If we choose to go with the current proposal, we ought to understand why. It shouldn’t be a matter of ‘that’s how we always have done it,’ or because we wrote the tax code around the concept of married couples.”

PLAYBOOK READS

THE WHITE HOUSE

WORKING TOGETHER? “Biden finds unlikely allies for massive state rescue: local GOP officials,” by Kellie Mejdrich: “Republicans in Congress attacking President Joe Biden’s plan to pour hundreds of billions of dollars in pandemic relief aid into local governments are facing resistance — from GOP-run states and cities.

“Republican mayors in Texas, Arizona, Florida and Oklahoma are among those backing Biden’s state and local government funding plan as part of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid bill that’s before the Senate, defying GOP lawmakers in Washington, who are broadly resisting the spending.”

WORTH IT — “Biden Presses Economic Aid Plan, Rejecting Inflation Fears,” NYT: “With a $1.9 trillion economic aid package on the brink of passing Congress and the pace of vaccinations picking up, some economists, Republican lawmakers and Wall Street traders are increasingly raising a counterintuitive concern: that the economy, still emerging from its precipitous pandemic-induced drop, could be on a path toward overheating.

“The Biden administration rejected that argument again on Friday. Despite a stronger-than-expected jobs report, the president and his aides said there was still a long way to go to ensure the benefits of the recovery flow to workers hardest hit by the pandemic, who are predominantly people of color.”

THE CABINET

FILLING THE OMB HOLE — “For top budget job, Biden hesitates at naming a candidate who has bipartisan support,” WaPo: “People close to the White House say some aides have been turned off by the overt campaigning on [Shalanda] Young’s behalf, which began before the White House formally withdrew the nomination of Neera Tanden earlier this week.”

RICE COOKING — “Taking on a New Role, Susan Rice is Asserting Herself,” NYT: “Ms. Rice occupies the West Wing office that was previously inhabited by Stephen Miller, President Donald J. Trump’s top policy adviser. Aware of the symbolism of a Black woman who has been vilified by conservatives occupying the space where Mr. Trump’s most hard-line immigration adviser used to dictate policy, Ms. Rice has decorated it with Haitian art and scented it with sage.

“From there, she now convenes regular Zoom meetings about topics central to Mr. Biden’s agenda — she hinted at actions to come on voting rights, community violence and gun safety — and she has reorganized the way the council works. Instead of having a principal deputy serving under the director, she has appointed four senior deputies who are experts in their fields.”

PANDEMIC

TRACKER: The U.S. reported 2,221 Covid-19 deaths and 68,800 new coronavirus cases Friday.

SOME GOOD NEWS — “U.S. could reach herd immunity by summer through vaccinations alone, CNN analysis finds,” CNN

POLICY CORNER

IMMIGRATION FILES — “U.S. to open more beds for immigrant children as numbers rise,” AP: “President Joe Biden’s administration is instructing long-term facilities that hold immigrant children to lift capacity restrictions enacted during the coronavirus pandemic to open up much-needed beds in a system facing sharply increasing needs.

“A memo issued Friday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services tells service providers to ‘temporarily increase capacity to full licensed capacity ... while implementing and adhering to strict COVID-19 mitigation measures.’ It’s not immediately clear how many beds will come available beyond the roughly 7,000 that were online last month. HHS’ fully licensed capacity was over 13,000 beds late last year.”

POLITICS ROUNDUP

2022 WATCH —“Ron Johnson: No decision on 2022 run but leaving office is ‘probably my preference now,’” Madison State Journal: “Johnson is openly considering a third term despite Democratic challengers already lining up to challenge him and his pronouncement while running for a second term in 2016 that it would be his last.”

MEDIAWATCH

COMING ATTRACTIONS — “Former VP Mike Pence to Narrate Rush Limbaugh Series for Fox Nation Streaming Service,” The Hollywood Reporter

MISCELLANY

JOHN LEWIS’ LEGACY — “For The First Time In 56 Years, A ‘Bloody Sunday’ Without John Lewis,” NPR: “This weekend’s events in Selma will be largely virtual due to COVID-19 restrictions, but will include an online re-enactment of the bridge-crossing. Hank Sanders, the former longtime Alabama state senator, has organized a drive-in breakfast for Sunday that will feature a lineup of speakers, including President Biden.

“This year’s remembrance is devoted to honoring Lewis, along with other revolutionary leaders of that era who died last year — including the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a ‘dean’ of the civil rights movement; the minister C.T. Vivian; and civil rights attorney Bruce Boynton.”

CLICKER — “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker — 14 funnies

GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Ryan Lizza:

—“How One Looted Artifact Tells the Story of Modern Afghanistan,” by Matthieu Aikins for NYT Mag: “Many of the country’s finest antiquities were stolen under cover of war, ending up in elite museums all over the globe. Should they be returned?”

—“The Rise of the Biden Republicans,” by Zack Stanton for POLITICO Mag: “The pollster who identified ‘Reagan Democrats’ in the 1980s sees the emergence of a mirror image voting bloc. And it spells trouble for a GOP dominated by Trump.”

—“Vaccine Shipments Present a Security Challenge Worthy of a James Bond Film,” by Thomas Buckley for Bloomberg Businessweek: “Shipping companies are using kill switches, panic buttons, plainclothes guards, and tons of monitoring to ensure delivery.”

—“My Parents Got Sick. It Changed How I Thought About My Marriage,” by Mary H.K. Choi for GQ: “All the pain of the past year taught me something: the true nature of intimacy.”

—“Sneakerheads Have Turned Jordans and Yeezys Into a Bona Fide Asset Class,” by Joshua Hunt for Bloomberg Businessweek: “When the pandemic presented a buy-low opportunity, one college dropout hit the road and filled his truck with $200,000 worth of kicks.”

—“The rich vs the very, very rich: the Wentworth golf club rebellion,” by Samanth Subramanian for The Guardian: “When a Chinese billionaire bought one of Britain’s most prestigious golf clubs in 2015, dentists and estate agents were confronted with the unsentimental force of globalised capital.”

—“How Economist Emily Oster Ended Up at the Center of the Fight Over Schools Reopening,” by Tessa Stuart for Rolling Stone: “The best-selling author and parenting guru has attracted both controversy and accolades for her method of assessing school safety.”

—“The Politics of a Second Gilded Age,” by Matt Karp for Jacobin: “The mass inequality of America’s first Gilded Age thrived on identity-based partisanship, helping extinguish the fires of class rage. In 2021, we’re headed down the same path.”

—“How to Secure Elections,” by Dan McLaughlin for National Review: “Significant fraud is rare, but certain voting reforms are still needed.”

PLAYBOOKERS

SPOTTED: Bob Kraft seated at the best table at Palm Beach hotspot Buccan on Friday night.

GOING (BACK) TO CALIFORNIA — “Trump’s last national security advisor to return to LA law firm,” by Daniel Lippman: “[Robert] O’Brien recently moved back to LA and is returning to Larson LLP, a litigation firm, with around 30 lawyers, that he started in 2016 with former federal judge Stephen G. Larson. O’Brien will be Of Counsel to the firm and will have an international practice on arbitration.”

TRANSITION — Caleb Moore is now administrative director for Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). He previously was director of operations for former Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.).

In Friday afternoon’s Playbook PM, we reported that Paul Ryan was hosting a fundraiser for Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and labeled the item as “FIRST IN PLAYBOOK.” It turns out that Breitbart shared its own story about the fundraiser two minutes prior to Playbook PM’s publication. As such, we removed “FIRST IN PLAYBOOK” from the digital version of Friday’s Playbook PM newsletter.

THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here):

  • NBC

    “Meet the Press”: White House Covid coordinator Jeff Zients … Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) … Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) … Michael Osterholm. Roundtable: Yamiche Alcindor, Jonathan Allen, Jeh Johnson and Danielle Pletka.

  • CNN

    “State of the Union”: White House comms director Kate Bedingfield … Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves … Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) … Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

  • ABC

    “This Week”: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin … Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). Panel: Jonathan Karl, Byron Pitts, Karen Travers and Anna Palmer.

  • Gray TV

    “Full Court Press”: Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) … Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.).

  • CNN

    “Inside Politics”: Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) … Michael Shear and Rachael Bade … Leana Wen … Maria Cardona and Alice Stewart … Daniel Kaluuya and Shaka King.

  • FOX

    “Fox News Sunday”: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) … Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson … Tom Freiden. Panel: Marc Short, Julie Pace and Juan Williams. Power Player: John Foley.

  • MSNBC

    “The Sunday Show”: House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) … Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) … Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) … Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) … Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) … Pennsylvania state Rep. Joyce Bullock.

  • CBS

    "Face the Nation": Anthony Fauci ... West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice ... New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy ... Ben Crump ... Scott Gottlieb.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Alan Greenspan (95!) … David Bradley … former CIA and FBI Director William Webster (97) … former Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) … Jennifer Skyler … Pablo Chavez of Google Cloud … Blake Gottesman … Jacqui Newman, DCCC deputy executive director … Brandon Chaderton, deputy WH liaison at USDA … Kara Carscaden … Anthony Foti … Jenny Rogers … Jonathan Day … Alex Stroman … David Urban … John Stossel … NYT’s Eileen Murphy … Saul Anuzis … Reuters’ Jim Bourg … Armen Keteyian … WaPo’s Erin Cox … Sandra Salstrom … Parker Brugge … Joe Perticone … Brooke Gladstone … Indiana Supreme Court Justice Mark Massa … NFL’s Brendon Plack … Bill Huey … Emily Leviner … David Gilmour

Got a document to share? A birthday coming up? Behind-the-scenes details from the vote-a-rama? Drop us a line at [email protected] or individually: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza, Tara Palmeri.

Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Mike Zapler and producers Allie Bice, Eli Okun and Garrett Ross.