☀️ 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.

☀️ @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.

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.

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.

☀️ @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.

We noted yesterday that the bipartisan Senate group that helped lay the groundwork for a Covid deal grew to 16 -- the Senate Sweet 16™, as we’re calling it.

News here from the House: The Problem Solvers Caucus has grown to 56 members, evenly split between Republicans and Democrats. @RepJoshG and @RepTomReed chair this group

@RepTomReed News here from the House: The Problem Solvers Caucus has grown to 56 members, evenly split between Republicans and Democrats. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) chair this group.

@RepTomReed I have dogged the Problem Solvers Caucus a good deal, but both of these groups have an opportunity here if they play their hand right.

Trump biographers—including me—and many Washington journalists are telling America that (a) Trump will never stop his coup attempt, (b) there's no bottom to what he's willing to do, therefore (c) there's no final "victory" over Trump we can celebrate.

I hope America will listen.

Donald Trump is a profoundly damaged mind. Everyone close to him who gets escape velocity from his madness says so. Friends. Employees. Family members. Trump's pathologies make him an ongoing danger to America that Biden's DOJ and intelligence officials *cannot afford* to ignore.

Too many journalists wrote pieces tonight calling the SCOTUS decision in the Texas lawsuit a "fatal blow" to Trump's coup. Listen—the coup was never going to succeed and Biden was always going to be sworn in. The question is what the country will look like when (and after) he is.

So you have a man on a mission to destroy this country who has it within his power to do so and you think his pathological scheme will cease because of a court decision? The "coup" concept will unfold over as long a period as Trump needs for him to get what he wants: total power.

Lara Trump will run for the Senate in North Carolina, they say. Ivanka Trump is mulling a Florida Senate run. Donald Trump Jr. is mulling the Montana governorship. The GOP may be the "Trump Party" by 2024.

This is an ongoing effort to build an autocratic dynasty and end America.

A THREAD ENTITLED: HE KNEW.

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The rally tonight was brilliant. Did you catch what was happening?

Essentially, Trump laid down a million tons of pressure on the Senators, the Gov, the SoS, the Minion, and anyone else involved in the fraud.

But, he's also given them a choice.

Let me explain.

Trump comes out and immediately starts praising the Senators and talking about the "socialists taking over the country if we don't elect them", yadda yadda yadda...

He repeats all the same talking points the GOP has been flooding the media with these last weeks.

But if you think about it, these talking points are moot. Trump is playing the game.

Do you really think the good guys would allow the fate of the country and WTP to rest on the outcome of runoff election for 2 feckless, spineless, corrupt GOP RINO Senators?

Not at all.

Remember: the goods guys caught them. They captured all the evidence they ever needed.

At any time, Trump can invoke the Insurrection Act, layout the case and clean this all out. Military planning.

But it's not time for that yet.

So what does Trump do instead?

He comes to GA for a rally, gets all his followers fired up, tells them they should all vote in the runoff, and smiles at the Senators.

He then proceeds to list out all the unsealed evidence of voter fraud in GA on camera with millions watching

here’s a screenshot of what the @gop deleted and hopes you’ll forget (via https://t.co/qH1DxrwRk8)

Donald Trump is leaving the White House within the hour. Re-reading his inaugural speech from four years ago, it’s clear the two words he wanted to define his presidency were “America first.” But the two words that ultimately did were “American carnage.” /1

Even the opening lines are a reminder of what his presidency cost us: “Every four years, we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power.” That tradition ended on Jan. 6. /2

(He also thanks President and First Lady Obama “for their gracious aid throughout this transition,” which suggests he can recognize grace, but not actually offer it.) /3

The speech was packed with familiar promises about rebuilding the military, bringing back jobs, boosting the economy, building the wall. Trump loved talking about infrastructure even then, though “Infrastructure Week” ended up as a punchline, not a program. /4

The promises were almost all broken. The unemployment rate is 2 points higher than when he took office, the stock market is up but the economy is weak, international alliances are frayed and America’s reputation is in tatters. /5