Playbook: Ronna strikes back

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With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine

DRIVING THE DAY

ROLL TIDE — More evidence came in overnight that reproductive rights remains a potent issue for Democrats, at least in low-turnout contests: The party flipped an Alabama state House seat from Republicans after winner MARILYN LANDS “centered her bid on reproductive rights and criticized the state’s near-total abortion ban along with a recent state Supreme Court ruling that temporarily banned in vitro fertilization,” Liz Crampton writes.

“Today, Alabama women and families sent a clear message that will be heard in Montgomery and across the nation,” Lands said in a statement. The flip of an affluent Huntsville-area district won’t make a huge practical difference in the GOP-dominated statehouse, Liz adds, but it “signals abortion can turn out voters even in a deep-red state.”

WHAT SHE SAID — Will it be the $600,000 interview?

The ramifications of NBC’s decision yesterday to part ways with contributor RONNA McDANIEL just two days after her paid network debut on “Meet the Press” are just starting to shake out. But they could be expensive.

McDaniel expects to be fully paid out for her contract, two years at $300,000 annually, since she did not breach its terms, we’re told — meaning that her single, not-quite-20-minute interview Sunday could cost the Peacock more than $30,000 per minute, or $500 per second.

That’s just one tidbit we’ve picked up from McDaniel’s side of things following yesterday’s announcement from NBCUniversal News Group Chair CESAR CONDE, and it might be just the beginning of the fallout. McDaniel spoke yesterday with BRYAN FREEDMAN, renowned lawyer to the estranged cable-news stars, to discuss legal options even beyond recouping the dollar value of her original contract.

While no arrangement is final, a person close to McDaniel tells us, Freedman would be an obvious choice: He represented MEGYN KELLY in her own acrimonious parting with NBC, as well as ousted anchors CHRIS CUOMO, DON LEMON and TUCKER CARLSON in disputes with their respective former networks.

McDaniel, we’re told, is exploring potential defamation and hostile work environment torts after MSNBC’s top talent — momentarily her colleagues — took turns Monday blasting her on air. (NBC declined to comment about the $600,000 figure or her potential claims.)

McDaniel was silent yesterday as the fallout from the internal network revolt mounted, and her perspective and role in the deal was largely lost as it unraveled in real time. She and her allies are, unsurprisingly, furious about how everything went down, believing she was misled about how much she’d be welcomed into the fold by executives who had aggressively recruited her. They blame the same NBC brass for botching the situation by not having her meet with top network talent ahead of the rollout, then caving to internal pressure from liberal-leaning hosts.

Most of all, they’re furious that the network did little to push back on a multi-day campaign against their new hire on their own airwaves. Host after host cast McDaniel as an enemy of democracy for, among other things, participating in a November 2020 phone call where then-President DONALD TRUMP sought to convince Michigan GOP elections officials not to certify election results.

“The part that pisses me off most about this is not necessarily that they folded; it’s [that] they allowed their talent to drag Ronna through the mud and make it seem like they were innocent bystanders,” the person close to McDaniel said.

We’ll set aside for a moment whether the well-documented “stop the steal” claims could be considered defamation against a prominent party official. McDaniel’s camp is similarly aghast at the finger-pointing that has unfolded inside the network over the past few days.

We’ve already reported that MSNBC President RASHIDA JONES was among those who did an about-face after blessing the initial contract agreement. We’re also told that Conde himself reached out to McDaniel last week after the ink was dry to welcome her into the NBC family with a message that said he was excited to work with her and that her perspective would be valuable to the network’s viewers. (NBC declined to comment.)

McDaniel’s camp is also particularly peeved at “Meet the Press” host KRISTEN WELKER, who said at the top of Sunday’s broadcast that her interview was “scheduled weeks before it was announced that McDaniel had become a paid NBC News contributor,” and declared, “I was not involved in her hiring.”

The person close to McDaniel said those words were misleading, at best. Playbook reviewed text messages from CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN, NBC News’ SVP of politics, showing that she and Welker met with McDaniel in mid-February — a few days after Budoff Brown initially reached out to McDaniel’s team to gauge her interest in joining as a paid contributor.

We’re told by that person that a potential NBC contract was mentioned in what was otherwise mostly a get-to-know-you, off-the-record chat between McDaniel and Welker that day.

An NBC insider familiar with the situation strongly disputed the suggestion that Welker was part of any contract discussions, arguing that “the meeting was set up to discuss the potential first interview” and “not about any potential contract.”

“Kristen was not part of those talks,” said the insider. “She was fenced off and insulated from discussions about a potential contributor agreement.”

Even after the backlash went public Sunday, when NBC’s CHUCK TODD publicly teed off on network execs for the arrangement, McDaniel heard directly from Budoff Brown and REBECCA BLUMENSTEIN, NBC News’ president of editorial, that they’d have her back and the controversy would pass, according to the McDaniel ally. The NBC insider familiar with the situation said their comments were more along the lines of “stand firm.”

But yesterday, as the fallout mounted, McDaniel heard nothing further from top NBC brass about getting the boot, we’re told — even as Conde announced her firing in a note to employees that included a personal apology to employees and a mention of “our deep commitment to presenting our audiences with a widely diverse set of viewpoints and experiences.”

Related read: “NBC braces for the backlash to the backlash after hiring and firing top Republican,” by Semafor’s Max Tani, Shelby Talcott and Kadia Goba: “[W]hile the abrupt reversal was cheered by some MSNBC staff, other NBC News journalists said they believe the move will only continue to strengthen complaints by Republicans that the network doesn’t want to hear their perspectives.”

Quite the split screen: “Was the 2020 election stolen? Job interviews at RNC take an unusual turn,” by WaPo’s Josh Dawsey: “The questions about the 2020 election were open-ended, two people familiar with the questioning said. ‘But if you say the election wasn’t stolen, do you really think you’re going to get hired?’ one former RNC employee asked.”

Good Wednesday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.

TODAY IN LA — “Attorneys for Hunter Biden return to court in bid to toss tax case,” by ABC’s Lucien Bruggeman

ABORTION PILL FALLOUT — While last night’s Alabama result demonstrated the power of the IVF issue, back here in Washington another front in the reproductive-rights wars has taken center stage: the battle over the abortion pill.

At yesterday’s Supreme Court hearing on the issue, even some conservative justices seemed skeptical of attempts to overturn the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. But as our colleague Alice Miranda Ollstein reports this morning, the conservative campaign to stop medication abortions is just getting started.

Even if the court rules against them, anti-abortion advocates have a multipronged plan to try to halt abortion pills, she writes: “The sprawling and loosely-coordinated tactics include other legal challenges in state and federal courts, state and federal legislation, executive orders, pressure campaigns against pharmacies that dispense the pills, and the use of environmental and wildlife laws.”

On cue, Democrats eager to flip the House are seizing on this debate, betting that the effort will blow back on the GOP much as the short-lived Alabama IVF ban did — or the original Dobbs decision, for that matter. The DCCC is keeping lists of more than a dozen vulnerable GOP frontliners who have backed spending legislation that includes a ban on mifepristone, and they’re already plotting to use it as an attack line against these incumbents.

It could help that the campaign against the abortion pill starts at the top: Speaker MIKE JOHNSON railed against “chemical abortions” in a 2020 interview unearthed by our colleague Daniel Lippman.

“We have lawmakers here … who supported legislation to do the same thing — to restrict access to mifepristone,” DCCC Chair SUZAN DelBENE (D-Wash.) told Playbook last night. “So independent of the Supreme Court case, we should all be very concerned about what Republicans will continue to do legislatively … which is undermining reproductive freedom over and over and over again.”

Related reads: “Supreme Court to anti-abortion activists: You can’t just challenge every policy you don’t like,” by Josh Gerstein and Alice … “The Little-Remembered Supreme Court Precedent That Could Protect IVF — and Abortion,” by Kimberly Wehle

WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY

On the Hill

The Senate and the House are out.

What we’re watching …

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Tammy is now endorsing in the New Jersey Senate race: Sen. TAMMY DUCKWORTH, that is. The Illinois Democrat is announcing her support for Rep. ANDY KIM (D-N.J.), Kim’s campaign is announcing today. “His candidacy isn’t just about restoring integrity and trust, it’s also about giving a voice to the millions of [Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander] voters on the East Coast who will finally have an AANHPI Senator representing their region,” Duckworth said in a statement. The move is a significant show of support for Kim after New Jersey first lady TAMMY MURPHY exited the race.

At the White House

President JOE BIDEN will receive the President’s Daily Brief in the morning. Press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE will brief at 1 p.m.

VP KAMALA HARRIS will participate in a press call on AI in the afternoon. In the evening, she will host a Women’s History Month reception.

PLAYBOOK READS

2024 WATCH

COVID COMES BACK FOR THE CAMPAIGN — Like many things with Trump, it all started with a social media post. When the former president posted on Truth Social, “ARE YOU BETTER OFF THAN YOU WERE FOUR YEARS AGO?” the Biden campaign perked up.

The Trump missive offered an opportunity to bash the Trump administration’s bungled handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. The gambit is not without risks: Biden’s camp had previously decided that the topic was too raw and divisive to campaign on. But skewering Trump over it could “prove pivotal as it searches for ways to puncture the Trump-era nostalgia among some swing voters,” Adam Cancryn reports.

“It’s a shift that has personally delighted Biden. Aides say the president often privately muses about some of Trump’s most bewildering episodes of 2020 and has relished the chance to recount them in public. ‘Remember when he said, “inject bleach”?’ Biden said at a private fundraiser in Houston last week.”

More top reads:

  • BARACK OBAMA is in regular contact with Biden as the reelection effort unfolds, and the two are scheduled to start campaigning together tomorrow in New York. But the former president isn’t stopping there: He’s also “making calls of his own to JEFFREY D. ZIENTS, the White House chief of staff, and to top aides at the Biden campaign to strategize and relay advice” as he fears a Trump win, NYT’s Katie Rogers reports.

MORE POLITICS

DOWN IS UP — Usually in presidential election years, the top of the ticket turns out voters that will help the down-ballot candidates. But this year, things might be different: In states like North Carolina, where Biden visited yesterday, Democratic candidates who are matching up against far-right opponents are eyeing something of an up-ballot effect that could boost Biden, Elena Schneider and Eli Stokols report.

Where Dems see their best chances: Arizona, where GOP candidate KARI LAKE is running for the Senate, and North Carolina, where Democratic AG JOSH STEIN is running against scandal-prone Lt. Gov. MARK ROBINSON for governor: “A sign that the Biden campaign takes this possibility seriously comes in its acknowledgements that North Carolina may be a more fruitful target in 2024 than Georgia, a state the president won four years ago but that will not feature a competitive statewide race this year.”

More top reads:

  • The sexual assault lawsuit against MATT SCHLAPP was dropped by CARLTON HUFFMAN yesterday, ending the episode that had hung over the head of the American Conservative Union since the allegations surfaced last year, Daniel Lippman reports. In a statement, Huffman said, “The claims made in my lawsuits were the result of a complete misunderstanding, and I regret that the lawsuit caused pain to the Schlapp family.”
  • AIPAC CEO HOWARD KOHR said yesterday that he will retire at the end of the year after nearly 30 years atop the organization, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. “That AIPAC is now playing a major, direct role in elections is a result of a massive strategic shift that Kohr and co-CEO RICHARD FISHMAN, who died in October, oversaw in recent years.”
  • ROGAN O’HANDLEY, aka “DC Draino” and one of Trump’s top surrogates, “may be considering a run for the U.S. Congress against Republican Rep. LAUREL LEE,” The Floridian’s Javier Manjarres reports, after Trump called for a MAGA primary challenge to the former DeSantis endorser.

TRUMP CARDS

GAGGED AGAIN — The judge in the upcoming Manhattan criminal trial accusing Trump of falsifying business records connected to a hush money payment imposed a gag order yesterday that bars the former president from attacking “reasonably foreseeable witnesses” or other people involved in the case, Erica Orden reports from New York. “It’s the third case in recent months in which Trump has been restricted in what he can say publicly about the legal proceedings against him.”

POLICY CORNER

BALTIMORE BRIDGE LATEST — The fallout from the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge morning yesterday continued into the day, with Biden vowing to cover the cost of the reconstruction but no clear timeline on when or how quickly that could occur.

The failed search and rescue: “Authorities began searching for six construction workers who had been repairing potholes on the Interstate 695 bridge at the time of the collapse. By Tuesday evening, their employer said they were presumed dead, and the Coast Guard said it was ending rescue efforts,” The Baltimore Sun’s Hayes Gardner and Christine Condon report.

What comes next: Our colleagues Ry Rivard and Peder Schaefer tick through the four big policy questions looming: (1) How big is the ripple effect on shipping? (2) What’s the scale of the federal response? (3) Will there be any real consequences? (4) How partisan will this get?

Related read: “Auto industry braces for ‘weeks of disruption’ after bridge collapse,” by James Bikales

ON THE CLOCK — TikTok could be in more trouble from Washington: The FTC has been investigating the social media giant “over allegedly faulty privacy and data security practices, and could decide in the coming weeks to bring a lawsuit or settlement,” Josh Sisco reports.

AMERICA AND THE WORLD

BIDEN TALKS BACK — At a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, yesterday, Biden paused his remarks to respond to a group of protesters who were there to grill the president on the Israel-Hamas war, NYT’s Reid Epstein and Maya King report. “The brief back and forth was Mr. Biden’s first direct exchange in weeks with protesters who are angry about his approach to the Israel-Gaza war.”

The scene: “‘What about the health care in Gaza?’ one person shouted, before another yelled it again. Mr. Biden stopped. ‘Everyone deserves health care,’ he said. … Another said that health centers in Gaza were ‘being bombed.’ ‘They have a point,’ Mr. Biden said. ‘We need to get a lot more care into Gaza.’”

Related reads: “Domestic Political Pressures Widen Divide Between Biden and Netanyahu,” by NYT’s Steven Erlanger and Aaron Boxerman … “Trump Advisers Talk of Palestinian Expulsions, but Activists Focus on Biden,” by NYT’s Jonathan Weisman

On the ground: Israeli officials have “agreed to provide security for the temporary pier the U.S. military is planning to build in Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid to civilians on the brink of famine,” Lara Seligman reports. The plans under discussion would have the Israel Defense Forces “establish a ‘security bubble’ to protect the U.S. personnel building the pier as well as the individuals involved in offloading and distributing the aid.”

BEYOND THE BELTWAY

BRACING FOR ROUND TWO — “California is preparing to defend itself — and the nation — against Trump 2.0,” by Blanca Begert in Sacramento: “Trump campaign officials openly acknowledge that they plan to attack California policies, confirming to POLITICO this week that the state’s electric vehicle programs would be a top target.”

PLAYBOOKERS

Donald Trump is selling Bibles for $60. It is “the only Bible endorsed by President Trump,” according to the FAQs on its website.

Matt Gaetz also has thoughts about Ronna McDaniel’s ouster.

Jill Biden is publishing a new kids’ book about “Willow the White House Cat.”

Ken Paxton is doing community service to avoid more legal trouble.

Daniel Thropp, a Robert F. Kennedy Jr. megadonor, has quite the personal history.

IN MEMORIAM — “Daniel P. Jordan, transformative leader of Monticello, dies at 85,” by WaPo’s Harrison Smith

OUT AND ABOUT — The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate held its annual dinner and Inspired Leadership Awards yesterday evening in Boston, where New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore were honored (though Moore did not attend). SPOTTED: Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, Joe Kennedy III, Patrick Kennedy, Cory Gardner, Kristen Welker, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Stephanie Cutter, Cody Keenan, Mike Barnicle, Kimberly Atkins Stohr and Adam Hinds.

— Motion Picture Association Chair and CEO Charles Rivkin hosted a celebration yesterday for Nicole Avant’s new book, “Think You’ll Be Happy: Moving Through Grief with Grit, Grace, and Gratitude” ($23.19). SPOTTED: Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), Polish Ambassador Marek Magierowski, Irish Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason, Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova, Ted Sarandos, Rufus Gifford, Makila James, Brandon Neal, Huma Abedin, Heather Podesta, Mandy Grunwald, Urmila Venugopalan, Patrick Kilcur, Emily Lenzner, Kimball Stroud, Todd Flournoy, Karen Finney, Lyndon Boozer and Eve O’Toole.

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Wendi Wallace and Saumya Narechania are joining the Biden campaign. Wallace will be senior adviser for the battleground states team and most recently was deputy executive director for the Democratic Governors Association. Narechania will be deputy battleground director and most recently was states director at Climate Power.

— Alex Howard is now an assistant press secretary at DHS. He most recently founded Alpha Hotel, a strategic comms firm, and is an AT&T and Bloomberg Industry Group alum.

MEDIA MOVE — Darren Samuelsohn is joining USA Today as Congress and campaigns editor. He previously was a senior editor at The Messenger and is a POLITICO alum.

TRANSITION — Mollie Timmons is joining the American Petroleum Institute as comms manager. She previously was comms director for Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), and is a Rob Portman alum.

ENGAGED — Sara Amin, audience and promotion manager of POLITICO’s events team, and Joseph Rampolla, an admissions adviser, got engaged Sunday in Virginia. They met in college as tour guides at James Madison University. Pic

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly … Steve Atkiss … Rob Nabors of the Gates Foundation … Natalie (Buchanan) Joyce of the House Office of Interparliamentary Affairs … Niki Christoff … Rachel Semmel of the Center for Renewing America … NBC/MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff … Lisa Zhang … Liz Johnson of Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-Utah) office … Billy Moore … The 19th’s Shefali Luthra … Alberto Martinez of Targeted Victory … David Mitrani … Whitney Smith of Rolls-Royce Defense North America … Devex’s Stephanie Beasley … Lauren Dikis … Katie Johnson of Jenner & Block … Lane Bailey of the Advocom Group … Laura Driscoll … Edelman’s Erin Schwille … Roll Call’s John Donnelly … Sally Kohn … Iain Hart of Rep. John Garamendi’s (D-Calif.) office … Mara Vandlik … James Park of House Judiciary … Jonathan Beam … POLITICO’s Kameryn Stanhouse and Julia Holland … former Rep. Susan Molinari (R-N.Y.) … Alex Aragon of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office … Mike Andrews (76) … National Institute on Drug Abuse Director Nora Volkow … Brad Rateike (43)

Send Playbookers tips to [email protected] or text us at 202-556-3307. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Mike DeBonis, deputy editor Zack Stanton and Playbook Daily Briefing producer Callan Tansill-Suddath.

Clarification: This newsletter has been updated to clarify the author of text messages about a meeting between Ronna McDaniel and NBC personnel.