| | | | |  | | By Brakkton Booker | With help from Ella Creamer, Rishika Dugyala, Jesse Naranjo and Teresa Wiltz
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Christale Spain gives her speech as a candidate for chair of the state Democratic Party, April 29, 2023, in Columbia, South Carolina. | POLITICO illustration/Photo by AP | What up, Recast family! An enemy drone kills three service members at a remote military outpost in Jordan; President Biden blames Iran and vows retaliation. And the House Homeland Security Committee meets to mark up articles of impeachment against Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. First, though, we focus on Democrats in South Carolina, who are holding the party’s first official presidential primary contest this weekend. South Carolina Democrats are hoping that when voters turn out for the state’s Feb. 3 primary, the Palmetto State will once again ignite Joe Biden’s trajectory to the White House. They figure they have history on their side: After all, four years ago the state delivered a decisive victory for the then former vice president as he swept all of the state’s 46 counties and eventually the party’s nomination, before ousting Donald Trump in the general election. South Carolina, with its outsize Black Democratic voting base, was so instrumental to Biden’s presidential victory, the Democratic National Committee, against the wishes of party officials in Iowa and New Hampshire, moved it to kick off the party’s primary calendar. Biden is trying to recapture some of that 2020 magic. He campaigned over the weekend, appearing alongside longtime Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn, the dean of the South Carolina delegation, at a church service in the capital city of Columbia and chopping it up with patrons at the Regal Lounge barbershop. As my POLITICO colleagues Eugene Daniels and Myah Ward also note, Biden headlined the state party’s “First-in-the-Nation” celebration dinner, where he spoke directly to Black voters: “I wouldn’t be here without the Democratic voters of South Carolina.” Christale Spain, the first Black woman to serve as chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, said she is feeling no pressure to deliver a robust turnout for Biden this weekend. She characterizes this weekend’s primary as “unprecedented” because it is “contested but not competitive.” Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson are challenging Biden for the nomination, but are only expected to draw a fraction of the votes Biden will. Spain, who was elected state party chair in April, says she has no doubt voters will show up in force for Biden. The current narrative about him losing ground with Black voters, particularly Black men, is not so much about a lack of enthusiasm for the sitting president, she argues. It’s simply, she says, a lack of information about how much Biden has delivered for South Carolina and for Black voters overall.
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We discuss this, the message she hopes South Carolina will send to the rest of the country — and whether Biden is doing enough to sell his vision for the next four years.
◆◆◆ This interview has been edited for length and clarity. THE RECAST: In April of last year, when you won the election to become the state party chair, you said: “I'm excited. I'm overwhelmed. I'm overjoyed. I'm just excited that the delegates chose me.” How do those feelings compare to the anticipation you feel about this upcoming test you have in your state in the Democrats’ first sanctioned primary. Are those feelings similar? SPAIN: Not you looking up my remarks [chuckles]. But yeah, I think they are probably exactly the same – definitely the overwhelmed part of it. THE RECAST: But given all President Biden went through last week in New Hampshire and the suspense of not knowing if the write-in campaign would be successful, I figured there is pressure for you to deliver a robust turnout among Democrats in the state. SPAIN: I don’t know about the pressure.
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| So it’s sort of uncharted waters for us, but that’s why we’re taking it extremely seriously. We’ve launched our [get out the vote] which is also historic because the party typically doesn't [get involved in a contested] primary. So we're really trying to make sure that we're being proactive and meeting our voters where they are all across the state. THE RECAST: Obviously, the goal for Democrats is to reelect the incumbent president. But when you have challenges from Marianne Williamson and from Rep. Dean Phillips, how does that make your job harder? Do you feel like the state party has to put its thumb on the scale in favor of President Biden or do you present voters with all options and say, make your decision among all the Democratic candidates available? SPAIN: You know, we’ve just been centering the voter. I think that the president's record speaks for itself. But we made sure that we welcomed everyone who filed here as a candidate. Dean Phillips has been on the campaign trail with us and I’ve gladly introduced him, along with some other very strong Biden surrogates. But for me it’s about making sure I’m committed to making sure that our voters have all the information they need to go and vote. THE RECAST: So what does a successful turnout look like? Roughly 540,000 ballots were cast in the 2020 South Carolina Democratic primary. But it was an open primary election and heavily contested. Are you expecting that kind of turnout this weekend?
|  Spain speaks to attendees before the president's speech at Emanuel AME Church on Jan. 8 in Charleston. | Sean Rayford/Getty Images |
SPAIN: We really don't have that benchmark. The last time we had an incumbent president was 2012 when Barack Obama was seeking reelection — but no one else filed to run against him. So these are uncharted waters to have it be contested, but not competitive. So we don't really have a number.
THE RECAST: There will be a lot of storylines coming into South Carolina, including a focus on whether or not Biden has that same juice among Black voters he had four years ago. And if there’s any evidence of a lull in Black support, folks will read into it as evidence that Black folks, Black men in particular, are not rocking with this president. How do you think this weekend’s primary will answer questions about enthusiasm for Biden? SPAIN: This is just in my own personal experience being on the stump, I really feel like what you all [in the media] are reporting as an enthusiasm gap is an information gap. And just being in the president's presence this weekend and seeing how well he was received … and him talking about how well Democrats have delivered, I think that Black voters will turn out for him. |  Spain accepts Biden's paperwork to appear in South Carolina's 2024 Democratic presidential primary as Vice President Kamala Harris looks on, Nov. 10, 2023, in Columbia. | Meg Kinnard/AP |
I see the [negative perceptions] about him online, but I don’t feel it here in the state, especially when we’re going around talking to Black voters about this administration’s accomplishments.
I don’t see a scenario where Black voters won’t vote for Joe Biden. Also, look who he’s running against [in the general election] — it’s literally the anti-freedom agenda. Black voters, especially in South Carolina, we’re the direct descendants of enslaved people, of freedom fighters — and we’re just not going for that. And I think that everything that the MAGA Republican stands for is contrary to the plight of the Black voter in South Carolina. I don’t know anyone who wants to go back to Trump’s crazy. | 
| THE RECAST: Well the playbook we’re seeing the Biden campaign deploying in South Carolina feels very similar to what we saw in 2020. Biden was campaigning over the weekend there, making stops at a barbershop, visiting Black churches. Even the language you use, alluding to Black folks not wanting to go back to the Trump-era. Is he doing enough to paint a vision about what he wants to bring in the next four years. It seems like Biden is spending a lot of time looking backward, sort of saying, we don’t want to go back to that guy, so vote for me. SPAIN: I guess I’m trying to understand your question, because as I see it, he’s campaigning. He’s trying to meet voters where they are. On Sunday morning in South Carolina, they’re in church. With Black men, if that’s a problem for his campaign, he’s going to the barbershops. So it’s voter engagement and trying to have direct voter contact. If you think he’s trying to run it back, Trump and his allies are the ones running it back. Running it way back. They’ve already banned abortion [in many states] — that’s running it back. THE RECAST: Finally, once the polls close Saturday evening, I don’t think there’s any doubt Biden will be announced the winner. What do you hope the message is coming out of South Carolina? SPAIN: History. We just made history. South Carolina voters, Black voters, just made history. Instead of Black voters being at the back of the bus, as DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison loves to say, we’re driving the bus. That’s really the point for us, to show that we showed up and we’re going to continue to do that. And not only that we are first, we deserve to be first.
| | | | PENTAGON IDS THREE SERVICE MEMBERS KILLED
|  Spc. Kennedy Sanders, Sgt. William Jerome Rivers and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett were killed in a drone attack on their base in Jordan on Jan. 28. | Shawn Sanders and U.S. Army via AP | | Three U.S. soldiers killed in a fatal drone strike on a remote military outpost known as Tower 22 nestled along Jordan’s border with Syria have been identified. - Sgt. William Rivers
- Spc. Kennedy Sanders
- Spc. Breonna Moffett
All three were assigned to the 718th Engineer Company, which was described by Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh on Monday as a U.S. Army Reserve unit based out of Fort Moore, Georgia. Singh added the trio were working in support of Operation Inherent Resolve and the international coalition fighting to defeat ISIS. More than 40 service members were also injured in the attack, including five who are being treated for traumatic brain injuries. Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp expressed his condolences via X, formerly known as Twitter, but also lashed out at those responsible for the attack. “These Soldiers gave the last full measure of devotion in service to this country,” Kemp said. “This inexcusable loss of life and the attack from terrorists that resulted in these casualties is a reminder of why we stand with the friends of liberty.” As my POLITICO colleague Lara Seligman points out, the attack on the outpost by Iranian proxies represents a major escalation in conflict in the Middle East and places a microscope on the Biden administration as it attempts to navigate an increasingly volatile situation there. Seligman also reports those who carried out the drone strike were members of an Iran-backed militia, who saw an “opportunity” and “exploited” it, according to her Defense Department source. The escalation has prompted former military officials to call for a retaliatory strike against Iran.
| | | ICYMI @ POLITICO
|  Republican presidential candidate former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley during a campaign rally, Friday, Jan. 19, 2024, in Manchester, N.H. | Charles Krupa/AP | Haley to Stay in Until Tuesday? — We spent a lot of time focused on South Carolina. Native daughter Nikki Haley, the state’s former governor, faces longshot odds at defeating Trump there in the GOP presidential primary next month. But she is committing to keeping her campaign running through at least Super Tuesday, March 5, reports POLITICO’s Kelly Garrity. Biden Campaign Meets with Rep. Tlaib — Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a vocal critic of the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict, has met with top Biden campaign officials. POLITICO’s Nicholas Wu and Adam Cancryn break down why this is important — and what it means for the upcoming Michigan presidential primary next month. Merrick Garland to Transfer Powers — Attorney General Merrick Garland is set to have back surgery this weekend and “will be out of commission,” reports POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein. A temporary transfer of power to the DOJ’s No. 2 Lisa Monaco was announced well in advance — a marked departure from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s failure to report his hospitalization for prostate cancer treatment, which garnered a fierce, bipartisan backlash.
| | | THE RECAST RECOMMENDS Out today: NPR host Ayesha Rascoe’s “HBCU Made: A Celebration of the Black College Experience,” a collection of essays penned by the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Stacey Abrams and Branford Marsalis. “We Are the World” drama is served up in “The Greatest Night in Pop,” a gripping documentary on Netflix, which explores untold stories from the 1985 charity song that featured mega stars of the era including Michael Jackson, Tina Turner and Bruce Springstein. One star, as Entertainment Weekly points out, says she was miffed because the producers only invited her so they could get to Prince. Sofía Vergara transforms for “Griselda,” a Netflix limited series about the real godmother of cocaine — and death — in 1980s Miami. The full series is streaming now.
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| In Kiley Reid’s newest novel “Come and Get It,” overheard conversations in a campus dorm become juicy fodder for a Teen Vogue column. Lil Nas X navigates family dynamics, sexuality and fame in a new documentary chronicling his rise to superstardom, “Long Live Montero,” on HBO now. In the new film, “Tótem,” preparations are underway for the birthday party of Tona. Meanwhile, his daughter Sol begins to understand the severity of her father’s illness. Juwan Elcock, AKA BLK ODYSSY, brings a silicone severed head (yep!) to his funky Tiny Desk Concert — the same one that appears on the cover of his latest album, "Diamonds & Freaks." BTS’ V stars in the cinematic, nostalgic video for IU’s ballad “Love Wins All,” set in a post-apocalyptic world. | 
| TikTok of the Week: Nicki Minaj x Deftones
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