By Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza and Rachael Bade

With help from Eli Okun and Garrett Ross

FOER BEATS THE BIDEN BOOK CURSE — FRANKLIN FOER’s “The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future” ($30) debuted at No. 6 on the NYT Best Sellers list.

STRIKE AT MIDNIGHT — Unless a contract is agreed to by 11:59 p.m. tonight, the United Auto Workers will mount a strike against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. … Breakdown of where the proposals stand, via the Detroit Free Press … Latest from the Detroit News

What UAW President SHAWN FAIN is telling his members: “We're making progress. But we're still very far apart." … “We are preparing to strike these companies in a way they've never seen before." … “Sept. 14 is a deadline, not a reference point.” … “We are not afraid to take action."

SCOOP: DeSANTIS WADES INTO SHUTDOWN FIGHT — As he searches for new ways to inject himself into the national discourse and make inroads with conservative primary voters, Florida Gov. RON DeSANTIS has decided to throw in with the hard-line agitators itching for a government shutdown at the end of the month.

Playbook has learned that yesterday, DeSantis spent about 30 minutes on the phone with conservative Reps. CHIP ROY (R-Texas), THOMAS MASSIE (R-Ky.) and BOB GOOD (R-Va.) discussing the spending fight as all three men urge Republicans to hold the line, even if it means a government shutdown.

We’re told that DeSantis told them, “I got your back. Keep fighting.”

Over the last couple of days, DeSantis — a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus — has worked to insert himself into the spending fight on the Hill. He released a video knocking the “D.C. establishment” for spending too much. And in an interview with CBS’ Norah O’Donnell, he blamed both Democrats and Republicans for overspending. (More on that interview in the “Playbook Reads” section.)

At an official function, President Joe Biden ignored shouted questions from reporters asking about impeachment. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo

INSIDE BIDEN WORLD’S IMPEACHMENT PREP — When White House aides got word that House Speaker KEVIN McCARTHY was announcing an impeachment inquiry into President JOE BIDEN, they found the timing … amusing.

They’d expected it, just later in the week — a timeline that blew up as McCarthy bowed to his right flank amid former President DONALD TRUMP’s pressure on House Republicans to move fast on the issue.

Trump’s push, they say, plays into their hands by making it easier to attack the entire proceeding as partisan retribution. One person close to the Biden campaign tells Playbook that we can expect to hear the president’s allies “hammering Republicans for … trying to use this impeachment as a way to to help Donald Trump's political prospects. And telling the American people, ‘This is an effort to damage President Biden. It is all about getting revenge and vengeance.’”

In the White House’s eyes, the GOP is moving headfirst into an impeachment inquiry that has no evidence of presidential wrongdoing, no process, no timeline, and no requests for interviews. (The latter is likely to change soon.) To them, it all suggests that the House GOP is unprepared to make a convincing case to their own moderate members, let alone the American people.

And that, Biden aides think, could give the president the upper hand — especially since the White House has been prepping for this eventuality for a year, even before the GOP took the House.

Over the last few months, as McCarthy’s impeachment rhetoric ratcheted up, Biden world kicked it into high gear — preparing talking points and gathering oppo on House Republicans. Evidence of that prep work abounds, with a single coherent message across both the campaign and official side, and everyone singing from the same hymnal.

On the political side: The Biden campaign sent out talking points to surrogates as soon as the news broke. On Wednesday, the campaign blasted out an email and text message sent in the voice of Vice President KAMALA HARRIS: “this inquiry is theater — theater with bad actors.” They anticipate a rally-to-the-flag effect for Biden among those Democratic constituencies where his lagging support has driven down his overall poll numbers.

On the official side: IAN SAMS, the spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office, has hit the cable airwaves and separately distributed a 14-page appendix chock full of in-depth rebuttals to Republicans’ claims. Read it here

While most of the communications are coming from the counsel’s office side, in the White House briefing on Wednesday, KARINE JEAN-PIERRE called the inquiry “baseless.”

The White House’s overarching goal is to make sure there’s not a vacuum in which Republican talking points fester in the public psyche. Folks around Biden have criticized the media for not doing enough to knock down, in the words of a person close to the campaign, “lies about President Biden” — indeed, Sams sent a memo to media orgs on this very topic. They see their own role as filling that supposed void.

At the same time, they’re insistent that the vast majority of the White House is locked in on substance. They want the American people to see Biden focused on being president, not distracted by the impeachment circus.

You saw this balancing act on full display yesterday. At an official function, Biden ignored shouted questions from reporters asking about impeachment. “Everybody always asked about impeachment,” Biden said later at a campaign reception. “I get up every day — not a joke — not focused on impeachment; I’ve got a job to do. I've got to deal with the issues that affect the American people every single solitary day.”

Roughly two dozen staff members in the counsel’s office have been tasked with investigations, and they have been working with the agencies as they’ve received requests from House Republicans, hoping to ensure the process runs as smoothly and speedily as possible — with the goal of depriving Republicans of talking points about administration stonewalling.

Inevitably, of course, there will be stonewalling. The administration won’t say what its red lines are in the investigations and won’t answer questions about which, if any, requests it will refuse to comply with.

But earlier this year, one aide involved in oversight preparations told us, “We've always said we're ready and willing to cooperate with good-faith oversight requests and will endeavor to do that as is constitutionally required. But when it comes to political theater and stunts that are designed for ‘Hannity,’ that's different.”

That person says nothing has changed since then.

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

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MITT HAPPENS — Following Sen. MITT ROMNEY’s (R-Utah) surprise announcement yesterday that he will retire rather than seek reelection in 2024, The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins published the first excerpt from his hotly anticipated new book, “Romney: A Reckoning” ($32.50). And boy, does it deliver. Some of the eye-popping parts:

• Romney’s urgent text to MITCH McCONNELL ahead of Jan. 6, 2021: “Romney sends his text: ‘In case you have not heard this, I just got a call from ANGUS KING, who said that he had spoken with a senior official at the Pentagon who reports that they are seeing very disturbing social media traffic regarding the protests planned on the 6th. There are calls to burn down your home, Mitch; to smuggle guns into DC, and to storm the Capitol. I hope that sufficient security plans are in place, but I am concerned that the instigator — the President [DONALD TRUMP]— is the one who commands the reinforcements the DC and Capitol police might require.’ McConnell never responds.”

• Romney on Sen. J.D. VANCE’s MAGA turn: “I don’t know that I can disrespect someone more than J.D. Vance. … It’s like, really? You sell yourself so cheap?’”

• On some of his colleagues’ behavior on Jan. 6: “What bothered Romney most about Hawley and his cohort was the oily disingenuousness. ‘They know better!’ he told me. ‘JOSH HAWLEY [(R-Mo.)] is one of the smartest people in the Senate, if not the smartest, and TED CRUZ [(R-Texas)] could give him a run for his money.’ They were too smart, Romney believed, to actually think that Trump had won the 2020 election.”

JUST POSTED — “‘You’re screwed': Romney’s exit threatens a collapse of Senate’s middle,” by Burgess Everett: “If JOE MANCHIN and KYRSTEN SINEMA follow the Utahn out the door, they’ll leave a void in a chamber that’s handed Joe Biden remarkable bipartisan deals.”

… “In private meetings, Manchin grapples with his political future,” by WaPo’s Tyler Pager and Michael Scherer: “Manchin has not decided what path to pursue, but it seemed clear to those he met with that he is likely to leave the Democratic Party if he chooses to stay in politics.”

JOIN US — Rachael, Ryan and other POLITICO stars are hosting an event Tuesday about building the new American economy, featuring conversations with Council of Economic Advisers Chair JARED BERNSTEIN, Reps. DAVID SCHWEIKERT (R-Ariz.) and DREW FERGUSON (R-Ga.), and more. RSVP here

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On the Hill

The House will meet at 10 a.m., and at noon will take up the Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act, with votes between 1:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. Energy Secretary JENNIFER GRANHOLM will testify before the Science Committee at 10 a.m. Minority Leader HAKEEM JEFFRIES will hold his weekly news conference at 11 a.m.

The Senate will meet at 10 a.m. to take up the spending “minibus,” with a vote on the motion to proceed at 10:30 a.m.

3 things to watch …

1. House Republicans yesterday gave up their plans to pass a GOP-written Defense appropriations bill this week, throwing in the towel after leaders could not reach a deal with holdout conservatives over various spending-related grievances. Instead, the plan is to move forward today with the Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act — a bill that would prevent the federal government from banning internal combustion engines under the Clean Air Act. If you want to know if there’s any hope for approps movement next week, keep an eye on what the holdouts are saying today. But don’t hold your breath.
2. The Senate, meanwhile, is poised to move ahead with its own appropriations legislation, with Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER scheduling a 10:30 a.m. procedural vote on a “minibus” package of three spending bills: Agriculture-FDA, Military Construction-VA and Transportation-HUD. What we don’t know — and what senators will try to hash out today — is whether the bill can be finished next week, and to what extent amendments will be taken up on the Senate floor.
3. The fifth Congressional Hackathon takes place today — this time, under the official sanction of the House’s Chief Administrative Officer. FedScoop previews this year’s event, which has historically offered a “unique launchpad for a dialogue about technological solutions in Congress” and helped advance “major tech projects like providing public access to raw legislative data, digitizing casework processes for constituents, and even helping jumpstart an app for congressional tours.”

For all the latest, check out Inside Congress Live, POLITICO’s new platform for up-to-the-moment Capitol Hill coverage.

At the White House

Biden will head to Largo, Md., this afternoon for a Bidenomics-focused event at Prince George’s Community College. In the evening, he’ll speak with rabbis around the country to commemorate the Jewish High Holidays.

Harris will head to Hampton University in Virginia to begin a national college tour called “Fight for Our Freedoms” with a conversation with TERRENCE J. She’ll then travel to NYC for unspecified reasons, before returning to D.C. at night.

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CONGRESS

Bill Gates said AI could help address global hunger | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

THE BRAVE NEW WORLD — The country’s most powerful tech leaders convened on the Hill yesterday with a majority of the Senate to talk about artificial intelligence — an issue where the heavyweights are unanimous in their belief that regulation is needed, WSJ’s Ryan Tracy and Deepa Seetharaman report. But there were plenty of mixed opinions, including on the scope of safety rules. BILL GATES said AI could help address global hunger, while ELON MUSK spoke of it as a threat to humankind. MARK ZUCKERBERG debated with the Center for Humane Technology over open-source AI being abused. The Writers Guild and the Motion Picture Association squared off over the impact on workers.

Divisions are emerging within the Senate, too, as lawmakers stake out competing frameworks for regulation this fall, Mohar Chatterjee and Brendan Bordelon report. Sens. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-Conn.) and JOSH HAWLEY (R-Mo.) are crafting major rules for AI, but others are working on less sweeping changes. Part of the debate is over speed: Some senators want to move quickly to address lightning-speed technological advances, while Schumer and others favor a slower approach to get their arms fully around the issues.

More top reads on Congress:

• Some Republicans are trying to save the PEPFAR reauthorization, which has implications for millions of people abroad with HIV/AIDS but which is in danger thanks to squabbles over abortion policy, Carmen Paun and Alice Miranda Ollstein report. Former President GEORGE W. BUSH, a champion of the program, is talking to members, and a bipartisan Senate effort would extend it by three years.

• After Manchin helped kill the expanded child tax credit and usher in a doubling of child poverty in America, he told Semafor’s Joseph Zeballos-Roig that he isn’t remorseful: “The federal government can’t run everything,” he said.

JUDICIARY SQUARE

HUNTER GATHERING — “FBI official: Hunter Biden prosecutor faced push-back,” by Betsy Woodruff Swan: “The testimony, delivered behind closed doors, is consistent in part with an IRS whistleblower’s description of the probe … But the agent also said she did not recall another key part of the whistleblower’s allegations that Republicans have focused on.”

2024 WATCH

Asked if he would consider using missiles on the southern border, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said everything was on the table. | Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo

RUNNING TO THE RIGHT — As the rest of the GOP field races to catch Trump, and the former president tries to avoid getting outflanked with his conservative base, candidates continue to roll out new and sometimes radical policy positions:

DeSantis yesterday told CBS’ Norah O’Donnell that he would send the U.S. military to the southern border and allow them to deploy deadly force against Mexican drug cartel members — indicating that somebody wearing a backpack and trying to get through the border wall would qualify as a target. Asked if he would consider using missiles, DeSantis said everything was on the table.

And Trump played catch-up with some of the other GOP candidates by announcing that he would shutter the Education Department. (Of course, Trump already had one term to do it, and didn’t.) His campaign video … More from CNN

More top campaign reads:

• Sen. TIM SCOTT (R-S.C.) is urging the RNC to alter the criteria for the upcoming debates by putting more weight on early-state polls, Axios’ Alex Thompson reports.

• A DNC committee will vote today on whether to give New Hampshire more time to align with the party’s primary calendar, Holly Otterbein and Lisa Kashinsky report. Likely forecast: The Granite State will refuse to obey.

• But some New Hampshire Dems have a backup plan: write in Biden if he’s not on the ballot, the Miami Herald’s Alex Roarty reports.

• Playing for second: From Merrimack, N.H., Lisa reports some Republicans are starting to admit that their vetting of presidential candidates is really about who should be Trump’s running mate.

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MORE POLITICS

BATTLE FOR THE STATES — Democrat RYAN BUSSE is jumping into the Montana gubernatorial race today. Republican incumbent GREG GIANFORTE hasn’t yet said whether he’s running for reelection. Busse is a former longtime executive at gun company Kimber, and his campaign launch video begins: “I’m a ranch kid, I’m a hunter, I’m a fisherman, I’ve sold almost 3 million guns, and I’m a proud Democrat.” Watch it here

ACCOUNTABILITY READ — “He Wants to Be Kentucky Guv. He Was a ‘Ghost’ in His Toxic Office,” by The Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger: “Attorneys in DANIEL CAMERON’s Attorney General’s office keep quitting, alleging a politically toxic work culture that is pushing career lawyers out the door.”

TRUMP CARDS

Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Monument Leaders Rally hosted by the South Dakota Republican Party on Sept. 8, 2023 in Rapid City, South Dakota. | Scott Olson/Getty Images

SHUT UP, SPEED UP — Trump-appointed Judge AILEEN CANNON yesterday mostly gave special counsel JACK SMITH a win in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, saying Trump could not speak publicly about classified information in the case. She also restricted his ability to access those materials. “But the ruling does not shut the door on Trump’s declassification arguments,” note NBC’s Dareh Gregorian and Katherine Doyle.

Meanwhile in New York, an appeals court refused to issue a stay that Trump requested in E. JEAN CARROLL’s sexual abuse defamation case against him. But the judges did expedite his appeal so his claims of presidential immunity can be considered quickly. More from the AP

More news:

• MARK MEADOWS’ appeal to get his Fulton County, Ga., criminal case moved to federal court will have its next day in court tomorrow, when an appeals court will hear oral arguments on his emergency motion for a stay of the lower-court order, per ABC.

MEDIAWATCH

QUITE THE INAUGURAL GUEST — “Trump will sit down with Welker to help kick off ‘Meet the Press’ revamp,” by The Hill’s Elizabeth Crisp: KRISTEN WELKER’s “interview with the 2024 GOP front-runner will be taped Thursday at Trump’s Bedminster golf club.”

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