☀️ @PunchbowlNews AM: Problem Solvers Caucus grows

One of the trends we’ve noticed in this Congress is that middle-of-the-road caucuses are getting larger and attempting to grab more power.

☀️ This morning’s newsy @PunchbowlNews AM

"Trump's role in the riot"

Here’s a challenge: Make the argument that Donald Trump had nothing to do with the riot at the Capitol after the first few days of the impeachment trial.

It’s damn tough.
The Democratic impeachment managers did something Wednesday that desperately needed to be done: They laid out in a thorough, comprehensive and digestible manner what Trump said and did in the months and days leading up to the bloody Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

They covered all aspects of Trump’s shocking behavior -- his provocative tweets, TV interviews and speeches claiming the election was being stolen; his months-long campaign to undermine the American public’s faith in the election results;

his efforts, both public and private, to overturn those results once it was clear he lost, especially his attempts to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence;

his repeated appeals to his supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6, the same day Congress was set to certify Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory;

Playbook: "Reality, meet D.C.”

MAYBE IT’S THE COLD, the impending wintry mix that’s bearing down on Washington. Maybe it’s because we’re about to leave 2020 -- that wretched, disgusting year -- in the rear view.

WHO KNOWS WHAT EXACTLY PROMPTED THIS, but reality is beginning to intrude in Washington.

REALITY 1) @JOEBIDEN is going to be the president. This was obvious to most breathing, thinking human beings with a pulse, but many Republican members of Congress were willfully blind to it.

BUT A FEW OF THEM BEGAN JOINING THE REST OF US on Planet Earth on Monday. @SenThomTillis called BIDEN the “presumptive president.” @LindseyGrahamSC -- who was calling around to state election officials a few weeks ago -- said “it’s a very, very narrow path for the president."

@SenThomTillis @LindseyGrahamSC SEN. ROY BLUNT (R-Mo.), the chair of the inauguration, said: “We’ll deal with Vice President Biden as the president-elect. The president continues obviously to have all the options he has available to him, but the electoral vote today was significant.”

@SenThomTillis @LindseyGrahamSC RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN took it further than most Republicans, straight up congratulating BIDEN after a month of saying he was waiting for the process to play out.

☀️ @PunchbowlNews AM:

What is @LeaderMcConnell doing?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock with noise-canceling headphones on, you know that the left has been clamoring for Schumer to blow up the legislative filibuster.

@LeaderMcConnell Progressive groups are spending $$ it to happen. @AJentleson has made a cottage industry out advocating for the elimination of the 60-vote threshold. @AOC wants it gone. @BarackObama too. Even Harry Reid says it’s a matter of when, not if, the filibuster is gets thrown out.

@LeaderMcConnell @AJentleson @AOC @BarackObama So what is McConnell’s first ask of Schumer? To guarantee Schumer won’t do the very thing that most of his party wants to see him do.

@LeaderMcConnell @AJentleson @AOC @BarackObama And that’s what’s holding up the entire Senate -- McConnell's ask of Schumer to guarantee he won't blow up the filibuster. The chamber can’t efficiently function without an organizing resolution, and without some clarity on the filibuster, they won't have an organizing resolution

@LeaderMcConnell @AJentleson @AOC @BarackObama And that's why @JoeBiden nominees are moving slowly in the new president’s first week. Despite being in the minority, Republicans still technically chair committees.

Playbook: How it looks at the end

GOOD FRIDAY MORNING. Here’s how your American government is ending the year -- and the TRUMP presidency.

-- THE GOVT runs out of spending authority this evening at midnight. Typically, the govt avoids shutting down officially if there is a spending bill on the horizon, so we may be spared that drama. Divided govt began in 2019 w a shutdown, and it may end with another funding lapse.

-- CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS are preparing the second-largest federal rescue package in our nation’s history, and no one has seen it just days before it will get a vote.

-- ALL OF THE POWER is centralized among four people and their aides: @SpeakerPelosi , @senatemajldr , @SenSchumer and @GOPLeader

-- PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP has continued his, um, mastery of Congress, by nearly blowing up the talks by demanding large stimulus checks at the last moment -- this is per @JStein_WaPo, the master of the direct check, at the WaPo.

G’morning from the Capitol, where we’re about to have a pro forma session in both chambers during which nothing will get done. This begins at 9

In the meantime, here’s what we said in Playbook this morning.

Headline: "Cyclone of uncertainty and chaos"

WITH 27 DAYS LEFT IN HIS PRESIDENCY, and the nation on the doorstep of Christmas, DONALD JOHN TRUMP has sucked Americans into a violent cyclone of uncertainty and chaos.

HE IS PARDONING CRIMINALS at a breakneck clip. Last night it was MANAFORT, who was in prison on tax charges, R STONE and CHARLES KUSHNER, IVANKA's father in law. Earlier this week crooked politicians and other unseemly actors. @BenSasse called the pardons “rotten to the core.”

>@maggieNYT and @nytmike put it this way: TRUMP “is at perhaps his most unleashed.”

@maggieNYT @nytmike TRUMP -- as he has so many times before -- has thrown the government he is supposed to be leading into an intractable crisis.

Alex Barros-Curtis run both Smith’s campaign in 2016 and Starmer's in 2020. He is Keir's new ultimate enforcer but who hacked, data scrapped and purged? Is Keir's position as LOTO truly legitimate?. Did he cheat?. Thread. #StarmerOut #LabourLeaks

Novara Media revealed that a leading figure in Kier Starmer's campaign had extensive links to Owen Smith's leadership bid in 2016. When asked if others from the Smith campaign were also involved in Starmer’s leadership Keir's office did not respond #LabourLeaks #Pfizer #Pharma

Keir had a campaign website, the controller for this DATA, according to the site itself, is a company called Movement for Another Future Limited. Alexandre Samuel Barros-Curtis is the sole director of Movement for Another Future Limited. Alex controls the DATA. #LabourLeaks

According to his LinkedIn profile, Barros-Curtis’s day job is as a consultant solicitor “Providing specialised legal advice in the area of derivatives and structured finance” in particular “Hedging, project financings, securitisations, credit derivatives” #LabourLeaks #HedgeFund

He has worked extensively on derivatives and structured finance matters in Europe and Hong Kong; as well as formerly working for the Clinton Foundation. Asked to comment on Mr Barros-Curtis and his role in the party Labour said they do not discuss staffing issues. #LabourLeaks

Today in #GRAHAMNC I went to a permitted March to the Polls lead by Rev Drumwright and others. Starting at a Black AME church, Rev Drumwright started the march by asking folks what our intentions were. TO VOTE the crowd chanted. Its the last day of Early Voting in #NC.

We then marched, escorted by police, about half a mile towards the center of Graham, chanting and singing. We moved slowly, because of the many elderly folks and families with small children. Graham is a small town in #AlamanceCounty.

Alamance County is known as "No Chance Alamance" because of rampant inequality and a judicial system generally known to be hostile to Black and Brown folks, and poor white folks. We believe that we can change that at the polls this year.

As the march approached the center of Graham where a large Confederate statue is, we kneeled in rememberance of George Floyd. His neice and nephew were in the crowd.

Moments after we were done kneeling a police officer started to yell that we had to be off the street. Folks were confused because we had been escorted there and had a permit. I moved my child up onto the sidewalk. They started pepper spraying us. My child couldn't run because

Aaron Rupar owning himself, a thread

I don't think that "Democrats were cowards and couldn't stand up to McConnell" is the correct framing. Dems clearly made a political calculation. Plenty to potentially criticize about that calculation, but it was informed by factors unrelated to generalized "fear of republicans"

What we largely know now:
-There would never have been enough GOP votes to convict
-GOP had the power to hold up *all* Senate business & that means COVID relief (Dems would have been blamed for this hold up)
-Witnesses were uncooperative & would have had to have been subpoenaed

So I think the correct framing is that Democrats made a political calculation that the benefit of adding witnesses (who would not change the outcome) was not worth the political & moral cost of holding up COVID relief, as well as important confirmations. . . .

This calculation can be criticized on its own merits, but it's categorically different than just being scared of McConnell & the GOP.

For my own part, I think an error Democrats made w/r/t witnesses was not calling cooperative police officers who had been attacked that day. Just a few personal narratives from the police would have deeply embarrassed the GOP. That's a missed opportunity, in my view.