Republicans react to Roe

The unofficial guide to official Washington.

Jun 26, 2022 View in browser   By Ryan Lizza and Eugene Daniels With help from Eli Okun and Garrett Ross The end of Roe v. Wade is already affecting political campaigns around the country. | Nathan Howard/Getty Images DRIVING THE DAY TODAY'S TOP READS: 1. ROE AND THE MIDTERMS: We have two new pieces this morning from our colleagues about how the end of Roe v. Wade is affecting political campaigns around the country. — GOP candidates, Sarah Ferris and Ally Mutnick write , aren't rushing to talk about abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision. "Multiple Republicans in tough races this fall — incumbents in districts Joe Biden carried — avoided abortion questions in the hours after the decision. Several others said only that it was an issue for states, not whether they'd support any legislation Democrats might put on the floor." The nuance: "Democrats say that silence, or occasional deflection, is a telling sign that Republicans know abortion rights remain broadly popular with much of the electorate — and that the GOP will soon face the wrath of suburban and purple-district voters. Some Republicans, too, acknowledge that abortion rights polling generally favors the left. But they say voters are harder to pin down when it comes to 'late-term' abortion or 'heartbeat' bans — terms the GOP leveraged to define the debate in recent years as the religious right gained influence." — On the Dem side, Zach Montellaro and Holly Otterbein report that party strategists are hoping that the loss of a constitutionally protected right to abortion will change the contours of the midterms, especially in places where Democrats have struggled lately. "Republicans have this year made campaign overtures in reliably blue states like Colorado, Washington, Oregon and New Mexico, all states that have recently given Democrats double-digit margins of victory — and all states where abortion is legal and keeping Roe v. Wade was broadly popular." — Meanwhile, Biden pollster JOHN ANZALONE tells WaPo's Annie Linskey and Colby Itkowitz, "If you are in a close race this will be a game changer." 2. NEW POLLING: CBS is up with some of the first public polling following the Supreme Court's ruling and it helps explain Anzo's prediction: "By more than a 20-point margin, Americans call it a step backward rather than forward for America. And women, by more than three to one, think the ruling will make women's lives worse rather than better. Those who approve — and in particular, the three-fourths of conservatives who do — say they feel both hopeful and happy. "As they look ahead, those disapproving of Friday's ruling are especially likely to think the high court might someday limit or end birth control and also same-sex marriage. Views on Roe being overturned divide along partisan lines, though perhaps not as completely as political debate or legislative battles might suggest. One in six Democrats approves, and one in five Republicans disapproves." 3. ALITO'S LONG GAME: NYT's Charlie Savage has the backstory on the path that Justice SAMUEL ALITO paved culminating in Friday's ruling: "In the spring of 1985, a 35-year-old lawyer in the Justice Department, Samuel A. Alito Jr., cautioned the Reagan administration against mounting a frontal assault on Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that declared a constitutional right to abortion. "The Supreme Court was not ready to overturn it, he said, so urging it to do so could backfire. In a memo offering advice on two pending cases that challenged state laws regulating abortion, Mr. Alito advocated focusing on a more incremental argument: The court should uphold the regulations as reasonable. That strategy would 'advance the goals of bringing about the eventual overruling of Roe v. Wade and, in the meantime, of mitigating its effects.'" SUNDAY BEST … — South Dakota GOP Gov. KRISTI NOEM on the use of abortion pills to end pregnancies, on CBS' "Face the Nation": "I don't believe women should ever be prosecuted. I don't believe that mothers in this situation [should] ever be prosecuted. Now, doctors who knowingly violate the law, they should be prosecuted, definitely." — Arkansas GOP Gov. ASA HUTCHINSON on calls for a nationwide abortion ban, on NBC's "Meet the Press": "I don't believe that we ought to go back to saying there ought to be a national law that's passed. We fought for 50 years to have this returned to the states. We've won that battle. It's back to the states. Let's let it be resolved there." — Sen. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-Mass.) on Democrats' focus on the midterms, on ABC's "This Week": "We get two more senators on the Democratic side, two senators who are willing to protect access to abortion and get rid of the filibuster so that we can pass it. And, yes, JOHN FETTERMAN, I'm looking at you in Pennsylvania. MANDELA BARNES, I'm looking at you in Wisconsin. We bring them in, then we've got the votes, and we can protect every woman, no matter where she lives." — Rep. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO CORTEZ (D-N.Y.) on justices' assurances that they wouldn't overturn Roe in their confirmation process, on "Meet the Press": "They lied … It sends a blaring signal to all future nominees that they can now lie to duly elected members of the United States Senate in order to secure Supreme Court confirmations." — Sen. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.) on Roe and the midterms, on "Fox News Sunday": "You know, this would be one of the issues that we talk about when we elect … members in state houses and governors, but it's not going to change the 2022 outcome. … The way you do this is to do what we did, you take it to the ballot box. You don't try to destroy America. These constitutional anarchists like AOC have to be dealt with, and there will be a backlash against this effort to intimidate our judges." Good Sunday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. We're adding a new Sunday section of op-eds, columns and editorials below. Please drop us a line and tell us when you see something worth including: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza. TOP-EDS — A round-up of the week's must-read opinion pieces. Roe … Maureen Dowd writes for NYT, "The Radical Reign of Clarence Thomas: Over the last three decades, I have witnessed a dismal saga of opportunism, fanaticism, mendacity, concupiscence, hypocrisy and cowardice. This is a story about men gaining power by trading away something that meant little to them compared with their own stature: the rights of women." Hugh Hewitt writes for WaPo, "Why John Roberts's wise prudence was the wrong answer on abortion law"  Adam Serwer writes for The Atlantic, "The Constitution Is Whatever the Right Wing Says It Is" David Rivkin Jr. and Jennifer Mascott write for WSJ, "The Supreme Court Reclaims Its Legitimacy" Rebecca Traister for NY Mag: "The Necessity of Hope: Things are bad. They will get worse. But despair has never been an option." Ross Douthat writes for NYT, "The End of Roe Is Just the Beginning: While the pro-life movement has won the right to legislate against abortion, it has not yet proven that it can do so in a way that can command durable majority support." Guns …  Matthew McConaughey writes in the Austin American-Statesman about the bipartisan gun safety legislation: "America, the Land of And: While this bill isn't perfect, it is a shining example of a great American potential and political virtue: the act of compromise and validating an opposing viewpoint." Robert Leider writes for WSJ, "The Senate Gun Bill Is Terrible. Liberals and conservatives alike should oppose it," George Will writes for WaPo, "The Supreme Court's gun ruling is a serious misfire" Jan. 6 … Peggy Noonan writes for WSJ, "Trump and Biden Both Face Rejection : This is the big political story now: Both parties are rejecting their leaders, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. It's a continuing tectonic shift and the story underlying every daily political story. It's building and will only grow. Both parties are starting to scramble for what's next, who's next. Both are casting about." Ryan Goodman, Norman Eisen and Barbara McQuade write for WaPo, "Did Trump believe his big lie? It's irrelevant to proving his guilt." Andrew Kirtzman writes for NYT, "Giuliani's Loyalty to Trump Was Born in His Darkest Moment"   Janan Ganesh writes for FT, "Anarchy is a likelier future for the west than tyranny": "The trend of events is not towards strongmen but towards ungovernability."  Politics … Salena Zito writes for NY Post, "Why Mexican-born Rep. Mayra Flores is the future of the Republican party" Andrew Sullivan writes on his Substack, The Weekly Dish, "Drag Queen Conservatism: A toxic, stupid sideshow is defining the post-liberal right as scolds." BIDEN'S SUNDAY: The president is in Germany for the G7 Summit. Already this morning, he has held a bilateral meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, participated in the official G7 welcome, participated in a working lunch with G7 leaders on the global economy, participated in a family photo with other G7 leaders, delivered remarks and formally launched the global infrastructure partnership. And at noon Eastern time, Biden will participate in a working dinner with leaders focused on foreign policy. VP KAMALA HARRIS' SUNDAY — The VP has nothing on her public schedule.   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     PHOTO OF THE DAY President Joe Biden signs a guest book as Bavarian PM Markus Soeder looks on at Franz-Josef-Strauss Airport near Munich, Germany, on Saturday, June 25. | Markus Schreiber/AP Photo PLAYBOOK READS WAR IN UKRAINE: "Russian missiles hit Kyiv as G7 summit begins in Europe," by CNN's Tim Lister, Julia Kesaieva and Jeevan Ravindran — "Russia will soon exhaust its combat capabilities, Western assessments predict," by WaPo's Liz Sly POTUS ABROAD: "Biden's mission in Europe: Shore up alliance against Russia," by AP's Zeke Miller and Darlene Superville: "While U.S. officials see broad consensus for maintaining the pressure on Russia and sustaining support for Ukraine in the near term, they view Biden's trip as an opportunity to align strategy for both the conflict and its global ramifications heading into the winter and beyond." THE TRUMP EFFECT: "Trump fatigue sets in: 'Some donors are getting sick of the sh--show,'" by Meridith McGraw and Matt Dixon: "As the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riots lays out Donald Trump's obsessive efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, Trump allies have responded with the political equivalent of a collective eye roll. But elsewhere in the party, operatives are taking notice. "The former president is being damaged, they say — perhaps not fatally, but notably so. In interviews, those operatives describe a GOP electorate still enamored with Trump and dismissive of the committee and its findings. But elements of the voters, donors and activists that make the three pillars of the party are exhausted too, they say. And they're growing less willing to let the baggage of the Trump years complicate the future." QUITE THE MIXUP: "Rep. MARY MILLER immediately drew fierce backlash on social media and elsewhere at a Saturday night rally with former President Donald Trump when she credited him for the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade calling it a 'victory for white life.' … But Miller's campaign said Saturday night that the congresswoman misread prepared remarks." … "You can clearly see she is reading off a piece of paper, she meant to say 'right to life,'" Miller spokesman ISAIAH WARTMAN said, per NBC's Natasha Korecki . "The misstep Saturday couldn't come at a worse time for Miller, who is locked in a tight contest with Rep. RODNEY DAVIS in Illinois' newly drawn 15th Congressional District." HOW WE GOT HERE: "The beginning of the end of Roe v. Wade arrived on election night in November 2010," NYT's Kate Zernike writes . "That night, control of state houses across the country flipped from Democrat to Republican, almost to the number: Democrats had controlled 27 state legislatures going in and ended up with 16; Republicans started with 14 and ended up controlling 25. Republicans swept not only the South but Democratic strongholds in the Midwest, picking up more seats nationwide than either party had in four decades. By the time the votes had been counted, they held their biggest margin since the Great Depression." GREAT NEWS: "Pfizer's Omicron-Targeting Covid-19 Vaccines Generate Stronger Immune Response," by WSJ's Jared Hopkins and Jonathan Rockoff NOT YOUR 2012 GOP: "MITT ROMNEY isn't up for reelection this year. But Trump-aligned Republicans hostile toward the Utah senator have made his name a recurring theme in this year's primaries, using him as a foil and derisively branding their rivals 'Mitt Romney Republicans,'" AP's Sam Metz reports . "Republicans have used the concept to frame their primary opponents as enemies of the Trump-era GOP in southeast Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The anti-tax group Club For Growth, among the most active super PACs in this year's primaries, used 'Mitt Romney Republican' as the central premise of an attack ad in North Carolina's Senate primary. But nowhere are references to Romney Republicanism as common as they are in Utah." YIKES: "Before he became a leading voice for conservative causes on Capitol Hill, U.S. Senator JAMES LANKFORD spent more than a decade as the director of youth programming at the Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center, a sprawling campground about 80 miles south of Oklahoma City that attracts more than 50,000 campers in grades six through 12 each year," AP's Sean Murphy writes. "In 2009, while Lankford worked at the camp , the family of a 13-year-old girl sued a 15-year-old boy who was alleged to have had sex with her at the camp. Lankford, who was not in Congress at the time, is not alleged to have had any direct knowledge of the alleged assault, has not been accused of any wrongdoing and was not a defendant in the lawsuit, which was settled for an undisclosed amount before it was scheduled to go to trial. But in a 2010 deposition in the case, given a week after he was elected to his first term in the U.S. House, Lankford testified that he believed a 13-year-old could consent to sex."   JOIN TUESDAY FOR A WOMEN RULE TALK ON THE ECONOMY: The U.S. economy is showing signs of slowing down after a period of robust growth last year. How would an economic slowdown affect women across socioeconomic, racial and geographic lines? Join POLITICO's Women Rule for a conversation on what's ahead for the U.S. economy and how it will impact women's livelihoods and economic well-being. REGISTER HERE.     PLAYBOOKERS OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED at a party for Tim Miller's new book "Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell," ($21.59) hosted by Juleanna Glover on Saturday night: Dana Milbank and Anna Greenberg, Alex Holder, Kolby Lee, Olivia Nuzzi, Betsy Fischer and Jonathan Martin, Marcus Brauchli, Windsor Mann, Appu Soresh, Bill Kristol, Sarah Longwell, Annie Karni, Kasie Hunt, Chris Krebs, Margaret Carlson, Matt Cooper, Josh Dawsey, Nina and Matt Rees, Eric Nelson , Michael Isikoff, James Kirchick and Josef Palermo, Mark Leibovich, Michael Schaffer, Brittany Gibson, Alex Thompson, Hannah Yoest, Blake Hounshell, Ben Jacobs, Jeremy Adler, John McCarthy, Andrew Bates and Megan Apper, Neera Tanden, Mohamed Soltan, Mona Charen, Sam Cornale, Robert Draper, Christian Hertenstein, A.B. Stoddard, Phil Rucker, Jonathan Weisman and Jennifer Steinhauer. — SPOTTED sitting next to each other on a plane from Chicago to Washington, D.C., on Saturday: Bill Barr and Guy Cecil . — SPOTTED on Friday night at a garden reception celebrating Jubilee hosted by British Ambassador Karen Pierce and Sir Charles Roxburgh at the British Embassy's residence gardens: Rufus Gifford, James Clapper, Virginia Boney, Bob Barnett, Mary Louise Kelly, Victoria and George Coates, Derek Chollet, Mitchell Rivard, Chris Costa, Carol Melton, Doug Heye, John Hudson, Sean Savett, Tom Wright and Lauren Culbertson. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: WaPo's Juliet Eilperin … NYT's Mike Bender and Daniel Victor ... Bloomberg's Emma Kinery ... Airbnb's Elizabeth Wilner … POLITICO's Scott Bland and Jonathan Finkelstein ... Brunswick Group's Dave Brown … Rachel Gantz … Mark Kadesh ... Emily McBride of Sen. Tommy Tuberville's (R-Ala.) office … Mark Ritacco ... Mayer Brown's Mickey Leibner … Matthew Fery … Carly Hagan … Judy Havemann ... Julie Norton … King & Spalding's Preeya Noronha Pinto … former Virginia Gov. Chuck Robb ... Ross Baker … Merit's Trevor Cornwell … former Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie … Alan Solow Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us at 202-556-3307. Playbook couldn't happen without our editor Mike Zapler, deputy editor Zack Stanton and producers Setota Hailemariam and Bethany Irvine.   Follow us on Twitter Rachael Bade @rachaelmbade Eugene Daniels @EugeneDaniels2 Ryan Lizza @RyanLizza   Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook  |  Playbook PM  |  California Playbook  |  Florida Playbook  |  Illinois Playbook  |  Massachusetts Playbook  |  New Jersey Playbook  |  New York Playbook  |  Ottawa Playbook  |  Brussels Playbook  |  London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters Follow us

To change your alert settings, please log in at https://www.politico.com/_login?base=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politico.com/settings This email was sent to rouf@idiot.cloudns.cc by: POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA Please click here and follow the steps to unsubscribe.