Playbook PM: Deep in the heart

It’s a Texas-centric news day here in Washington.

IN MEMORIAM: Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Texas) has died at age 70, Houston Mayor John Whitmire announced this morning, per the Houston Chronicle’s Abby Church and Peter Warren. Turner served as mayor of Houston from 2016–2024, and was elected to the House in November — filling the seat previously held by the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.

Turner was a proud Houston native, and spent more than 35 years representing his hometown in office. “He grew up in Acres Homes as the sixth oldest of nine children. Turner graduated as valedictorian from Klein High School before attending the University of Houston and Harvard Law School,” the Chronicle writes.

Sylvester attended last night’s joint session. “I can’t believe it,” said Rep. Al Green, a fellow Texas Dem. “We were on the floor together last night. You never know for whom the bell will toll next.”

SPEAKING OF GREEN: Following Green’s heckling disruptions during last night’s joint session speech by President Donald Trump, members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus are looking to formally censure the congressman for his behavior, POLITICO’s Ben Leonard and Meredith Lee Hill report. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) introduced a censure resolution today. When read it by HuffPost’s Arthur Delaney, Green had a frank reaction: “My response is, ‘Guilty,’” he said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries declined to comment on Green’s behavior when asked by reporters today, per POLITICO’s Nicholas Wu. “We’re going to keep the focus on the American people — that’s where the focus should be,” Jeffries said. Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) was also eager to move on to other topics: “Let’s not talk about decorum when the plot is exposed and reiterated every single day.”

ON THE BORDER: VP JD Vance will visit an immigration processing location in Eagle Pass, Texas, this afternoon as the Trump administration continues to tout its crackdown on illegal immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border. Vance will be joined by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

A look at recent numbers from the U.S. Customs and Border Control shows that there continues to be a sharp decline of migrant encounters and drug seizures on the border, and statistics sit at near-historic lows, El Paso Times’ Jeff Abbott reports. “There were 4,871 encounters with migrants between ports of entry in West Texas and southern New Mexico in January 2025, according to data from CBP. This trend looks to have continued through February 2025, with agents averaging between 50 to 60 migrants per day, a spokesperson for the Border Patrol El Paso Sector said.” The decline continues a trend that began during the Biden administration.

Vance’s trip to the Lone Star State comes a day after a Texas refugee aid group sued the Trump administration for freezing federal funds used in the state’s refugee resettlement programs, per The Texas Tribune’s Uriel Garcia.

Related read: “Immigrant labor fuels US economy but Trump’s crackdown mostly ignores it,” by AP’s Tim Sullivan and Rebecca Boone.

TRUMP ON THE WORLD STAGE — A head-spinning array of action from President Trump has left world leaders scrambling to respond on topics ranging from tariffs to intelligence-sharing to national sovereignty. Here’s the latest:

CANADA: Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and Trump spoke late this morning about the tit-for-tat tariffs being volleyed between Washington and Ottawa. Trudeau said he is not willing to lift Canada’s retaliatory efforts against the U.S. goods so long as Trump continues with his 25 percent tariffs against imports from Canada, AP’s Rob Gillies reports. In welcome news for the industrial midwest, Trump is considering potentially “delaying tariffs on North American-built vehicles by 30 days,” Reuters’ David Shepardson reports. “Automakers have offered to boost U.S. auto investments but want certainty about tariff and environmental policies, the sources added, noting that Trump could on April 2 impose additional tariffs that could drastically impact U.S. auto production.”

GREENLAND: Greenland PM Múte Bourup Egede is quickly biting back after Trump’s proclaimed U.S. will acquire the country “one way or the other” in last night’s joint address. “Kalaallit Nunaat is ours,” Edgede wrote in a Facebook post this morning, using the Greenlandic name for the island. “The Americans and their leader must understand that. We are not for sale and cannot simply be taken. Our future will be decided by us in Greenland.” More from POLITICO’s Amanda Friedman

UKRAINE: “The United States has paused major portions of its intelligence-sharing with Ukraine, squeezing the flow of vital information that Kyiv has used to repel invading Russian forces and strike back at select targets inside Russia,” WaPo’s Warren Strobel, Siobhán O’Grady, Ellen Nakashima and Kostiantyn Khudov report. The halt comes just days after President Trump froze weapons deliveries to Ukraine and less than a week after Trump, Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy got into an explosive discussion in the Oval Office.

Why now? The Trump team is using the halt as a tool to push Ukraine to the negotiating table vis-a-vis Russia, POLITICO’s Jack Detsch, Matt Honeycombe-Foster, Joe Gould and Paul McLeary report. “President Trump is going to hold everyone accountable to drive peace around the world,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in an interview this morning on Fox News.

GAZA: In an unprecedented move, the Trump administration has been holding direct closed-door talks with Hamas over the potential release of U.S. hostages held in Gaza and the “the possibility of a broader deal to end the war,” Axios’ Barak Ravid scoops. The U.S. has “never before engaged directly with Hamas, which it designated a terrorist organization in 1997.” The conversations reportedly took place without buy-in from Israel, which “learned about aspects of the talks through other channels,” Ravid writes.

Hostage update: As of now, “59 hostages are still held by Hamas in Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces have confirmed 35 of them are dead. Israeli intelligence believes 22 hostages are still alive, and the status of two others is unknown. … Among the remaining hostages are five Americans including one, 21-year-old Edan Alexander, who is believed to be alive.”

CHINA: As Trump’s ramps up his trade war against Beijing, the Chinese government released its annual economic plan, laying out an optimistic view of the nation’s economy but giving “scant indication of how the economy would get there without another surge in exports this year,” NYT’s Alexandra Stevenson and Keith Bradsher report from Beijing. The report comes a day after the Chinese embassy in the U.S. warned it was ready to fight “any type” of war in the wake of Trump’s tariffs.

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AFTERNOON WATCH — In his joint address to Congress last night, President Trump gave a red-meat speech that lauded his culture war victories, denigrated his political opponents, and, oh yeah, ran until 11 p.m. But for all the noise in the speech, many of the headlines this morning are about Democrats, who responded to the aggressive and partisan speech in kind. Playbook managing editor and author Jack Blanchard breaks it all down with chief Playbook correspondent Eugene Daniels and Capitol bureau chief and senior Washington columnist Rachael Bade on the latest episode of Playbook Daily Briefing. Watch it now on YouTube

HAPPENING SOON — “Trump, Johnson press Republicans to back funding plan,” by Meredith Lee Hill: “A group of House Freedom Caucus members and other budget hawks who are deeply skeptical of supporting short-term measures to fund the federal operations are heading to the White House Wednesday for a 2 p.m. meeting with Trump. The president is expected to push for Republicans to fall in line and vote for Johnson’s continuing resolution to fund the government at current spending levels through the end of September.”

1. HOT ON THE HILL: Democratic mayors of four major cities are currently facing a barrage of questions from House Oversight Committee Republicans over their so-called “sanctuary city” policies that help shield undocumented migrants from federal authorities. “In his opening remarks for the much-anticipated hearing, House Oversight Committee chair James Comer sought to depict the four cities — Boston, New York City, Denver and Chicago — as rife with crime,” POLITICO’s Hailey Fuchs reports. With 60 committee members allowed five minutes each for questioning, expect the hearing to drag on for quite some time.

You sure about that? Comer also made a surprising remark vis-a-vis the administration’s immigration crackdown. “I don’t think anyone’s calling for mass deportation,” he said — despite the fact Trump has touted his desire for mass deportations many times.

2. SCOTUS WATCH: In a 5-4 ruling this morning, the Supreme Court “rebuffed the Trump administration’s request to lift a lower-court order that required the government to quickly pay nearly $2 billion that contractors and aid groups say they’re owed for U.S.-backed foreign-aid projects,” POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney report. Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberals in the ruling.

But but but: Though the ruling handed a (likely temporary) win to foreign aid programs, the court “told U.S. District Judge Amir Ali to clarify his earlier order” un-freezing the money, AP’s Mark Sherman reports. The justices said Ali must show “due regard for the feasibility” of any future extensions and further “clarify what obligations the government must fulfil to ensure compliance” with the order. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Samuel Alito described Ali’s order as “an act of judicial hubris.”

So, what’s next? As the battle over the order is expected to drag on in the lower courts, the ruling is a “potentially short-lived victory” for contractors, Kyle and Josh write. Ali has scheduled a hearing tomorrow to reexamine the pause.

3. GEORGIA ON MY MIND: Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) took the first step towards a gubernatorial run today as she formally filed paperwork to launch an exploratory committee, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Greg Bluestein reports.

“McBath, 64, is trying to build early momentum and scare off potential rivals in the wide-open race to succeed Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who cannot seek a third term. Though the GOP race for the office is well underway, the Democratic field has been more muddled,” Bluestein writes. “But McBath must strike a delicate balance in a state that Trump captured in November.” If successful, McBath would be the first Black woman elected governor in American history.

Other Dems in the mix: “Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, state Sen. Jason Esteves and former DeKalb chief executive Michael Thurmond are also weighing bids for governor. And two-time gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams, who twice lost to Kemp, hasn’t ruled out a third campaign.”

4. DEMOCRACY DIGEST: Election officials across the country who “have grown to rely on the federal government’s cybersecurity assistance fear that the Trump administration may permanently block that aid by Thursday,” as the administration cracks down on DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, NBC News’ Kevin Collier reports. The review of CISA’s efforts “appears to be prompted by a false claim popular among Trump allies that the agency is engaged in policing disinformation and censoring conservatives.”

5. SCARY STUFF: “U.S. Marshals have warned federal judges of unusually high threat levels as tech billionaire Elon Musk and other Trump administration allies ramp up efforts to discredit judges who stand in the way of White House efforts to slash federal jobs and programs,” Reuters’ Peter Eisler, Mike Spector, Ned Parker and Nate Raymond report.

“Several judges said the U.S. Marshals Service, which provides judicial security, has informed them of a heightened threat environment over the past several weeks, either verbally or in writing. … Reuters interviews with 11 federal judges in multiple districts revealed mounting alarm over their physical security and, in some cases, a rise in violent threats in recent weeks.”

6. BIG CUTS COMING: “Trump administration plans to cut 80,000 employees from Veterans Affairs,” by AP’s Stephen Groves: “The VA’s chief of staff, Christopher Syrek, told top level officials at the agency that it had an objective to cut enough employees to return to 2019 staffing levels of just under 400,000. … The memo instructs top-level staff to prepare for an agency-wide reorganization in August to ‘resize and tailor the workforce to the mission and revised structure.’”

TRANSITIONS — Rahul Rao is now a partner at White & Case LLP. He previously was deputy director at the FTC’s Bureau of Competition. … Christopher Madaio is now senior adviser at The Institute for College Access & Success. He previously was director of the investigations group at the Education Department’s Office of Federal Student Aid. … Nvidia is adding Sarah Weinstein and Angela Krasnick to its corporate comms team in D.C. Weinstein previously was director of public affairs at the Commerce Department and is a Jeanne Shaheen and Pete Aguilar alum. Krasnick most recently was director of digital platforms in the Biden White House. …

… Jennie Chandra is now a partner at Convergence Strategies. She most recently was global head of government affairs at Conduent. … Sierra Robinson is now director of external affairs and comms at the National Credit Union Administration. She previously was a director of federal government affairs at CitiGroup and is a Mike Crapo alum.

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