With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine

DRIVING THE DAY

PROTEST-PROOFING THE DNC — In a newsy column just posted, Jonathan Martin looks at the quiet effort to engineer this summer’s Democratic National Convention into a less disruption-prone affair: “Between Protests and a Rookie Mayor, Is Chicago Ready for the DNC?”

“The goal: drive maximum viewership on television and the internet while minimizing live programming and openings for protest in Chicago’s United Center,” JMart writes. The methods under consideration: (1) potentially moving some party business off the convention floor, (2) reprising 2020’s pre-taped delegate roll call to provide “one less opportunity for hot mic spontaneity” and (3) praying that Chicago’s activist-sympathetic mayor, BRANDON JOHNSON, plays nice with the party brass.

THE PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW: MIKE JOHNSON — We spent over an hour with Speaker MIKE JOHNSON on Wednesday night after the failed motion-to-vacate vote, and while he made a lot of news, we were most struck by how Johnson seems to be wrestling with a split personality.

There’s MAGA Mike, who is a loyal DONALD TRUMP lieutenant and social conservative warrior. But there’s also Speaker Johnson, who takes governing seriously, is eager to find consensus and heap praise on adversaries, and is ready to critique — gently — the former president’s bad ideas.

Johnson looks back fondly on the relationship between his predecessor TIP O’NEILL and President RONALD REAGAN, who he recalled “famously had this great relationship.”

After Reagan was shot in 1981, “Tip O'Neill goes to the hospital and kisses him on the forehead,” Johnson said. “You know, like they didn't agree on almost anything, but they had respect for one another. And I think we got to get back to that.”

The way he talks about Minority Leader HAKEEM JEFFRIES suggests a genuine Washington bromance. Hakeem is “a good family man,” “a man of his word,” and “we have a lot more in common than people might think.”

Johnson sounds serious about how polarization and negative partisanship are making governing impossible.

“The person on the other side of the aisle is not an enemy, they're a fellow American,” he said. “The Founders anticipated that you have people with very different philosophical ideas, very different principles and ideas about government. But the point was that we would come here, sit around a table and arm-wrestle together and kind of get to a point of consensus so that we can govern the country.”

When he said that these ideas “are lost on people now” and that “this system doesn't work unless you understand the principles that undergird it,” it wasn’t hard to figure out who he was talking about, especially since we were chatting just hours after Rep. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-Ga.) forced a vote on his removal as speaker.

In general, he sounded very much like someone who had (1) spent the last few months cutting bipartisan deals to keep the government open, (2) worked with Biden officials to get a clear-eyed view of the Russian threat before pushing through an aid package embraced by the bipartisan foreign policy establishment, (3) lost any respect he had for the far-right agitators who don’t seem to believe in governing and (4) come to admire the House Democratic leader who saved him from his own party.

But Johnson in our interview was also quick to accuse President JOE BIDEN of having “a senior moment” on Israel policy, and agreed with characterizations of the president as essentially too old and senile to govern.

There’s also the Johnson who led the House GOP amicus brief that claimed the 2020 election was “riddled with an unprecedented number of serious allegations of fraud and irregularities.” When we asked him if had any regrets about the role he played after the election, he said, “No, I don’t.”

When we asked if he believed presidents should have absolute immunity from prosecution, he did not rule it out, even when we pressed him twice. “I think it's common sense that you can't have the president sitting in the Oval Office worried about whether some lawyer or some local DA somewhere is going to go after him,” he said.

Johnson is deferential to Trump and is better than PAUL RYAN and KEVIN McCARTHY were at managing him. He was able to neuter Trump during the final chapter of the Ukraine aid debate and get him to publicly oppose Greene’s coup attempt.

Johnson’s pre-speaker life as a lawyer and elected official were defined by social conservative causes, especially activism against abortion. “The killing of unborn children,” he said in 2022, “has been the greatest atrocity that’s been committed on our society.” But when we asked him if he planned to forward any legislation on abortion before the election, he said, “No.” Did he anticipate passing any sort of nationwide abortion ban if he is speaker and Trump is president? “No, I don’t.”

Still, in our conversation, Johnson showed a willingness to buck Trump — or at least a desire not be seen as his puppet.

When we asked Johnson if he agreed with the assessment of some Republicans that he was only speaker because of Trump, he stammered a bit.

“Well, I don't know. He did throw in an endorsement of me, I suppose, when the speaker's race was ongoing,” Johnson said. “President Trump got involved in that and said, yeah, I, you know, I could be great at the end of that. And I'm sure it helped. And I'm grateful for that.”

He was also quick to shoot down one of the more wild-eyed ideas demanded by Greene on behalf of Trump: defunding the special counsel’s office. “That's not something you wave a wand and just eliminate the special counsel as a provision,” he said. “As a former constitutional law attorney and litigator myself, there is a necessity for a function like that.”

As we reported in yesterday’s Playbook PM, that prompted a bit of a clean-up effort when we asked Trump world about that posture.

Finally, don’t miss the audio of Johnson’s excellent impersonation of Trump. He does not quite embody all of the former president’s attributes, but he gets closer than you might expect.

Listen to the full interview on this week’s episode of Playbook Deep Dive on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Read a lightly edited transcript of the conversation in POLITICO Magazine 

Happy Friday. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.

HALEYWATCH — “Nikki Haley Is Huddling With Donors and Won’t Endorse Donald Trump Yet,” by WSJ’s John McCormick: “The former South Carolina governor is attending a retreat in Charleston, S.C., on Monday and Tuesday to thank about 100 of her biggest donors, a person close to Haley told The Wall Street Journal. She isn’t expected to discuss her political future or encourage them to give to other campaigns. The person said there is no pending endorsement of Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee. The two didn’t speak when she got out of the race on March 6 and haven’t done so since, this person said. … On Tuesday in Indiana, Haley got close to 22% of the vote.”

WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY

On the Hill

The Senate is in. The House is out.

3 things to watch …

1. The Senate’s FAA reauthorization saga has come to an anticlimactic end. With Thursday evening jet fumes wafting in the air, the chamber voted 88-4 to pass a bipartisan, bicameral compromise bill. There were no votes on any amendments across more than a week of debate, including the one from Virginia Democrats TIM KAINE and MARK WARNER that would have stripped out the five additional daily arrivals and departures at Reagan National Airport. They’re super pissed about it, but the die is cast: While the House will have to vote on it next week, no further changes are expected.
   
2. Biden’s decision to condition offensive military aid to Israel over their handling of a potential incursion into Rafah has a whole lot of Republicans comparing the scenario to Trump’s handling of Ukraine aid in 2019 — you know, the thing he got impeached for the first time. We could run chapter-and-verse through the obvious distinctions between the two situations. But it’s a powerful scrap of whataboutism you can expect to continue hearing about on the MAGA right, and Rep. CORY MILLS (R-Fla.) tells Semafor’s Kadia Goba he’s aiming to turn it into an actual impeachment resolution.
   
3. Biden may soon have to use his veto pen to protect his administration’s electric vehicle policies — thanks to an endangered Senate Democrat. James Bikales and Josh Siegel report for Pros that Sen. SHERROD BROWN (D-Ohio) is joining a push from colleague JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) to overturn new EV tax credit eligibility rules which loosen U.S. sourcing policies. Assuming all Republicans join them, which is likely, the measure has the support to clear the Senate, then the House and land on Biden’s desk later this year.

At the White House

Biden will participate in two campaign receptions in the California Bay Area in the afternoon. Later, he will depart for Seattle, Washington, where he will attend a third campaign reception.

VP KAMALA HARRIS will receive briefings and conduct internal meetings with staff.

PLAYBOOK READS

TRUMP CARDS

STARK AND STORMY — STORMY DANIELS faced a fiery cross-examination yesterday at Trump’s hush money trial, as the former president’s legal team sought to discredit her testimony about a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump. Over almost three hours, Trump lawyer SUSAN NECHELES grilled Daniels on the legitimacy of her testimony earlier this week, which included vivid details of her night with Trump in a Nevada hotel.

The testimony clearly got under Trump’s skin: Judge JUAN MERCHAN yesterday denied the ex-president’s request for an exception to his gag order that would allow him to publicly attack Daniels. Stil, Trump’s legal team believes Daniels' testimony is unlikely to hurt him in the court of public opinion since his “messy personal affairs and love life have been tabloid fodder for decades,” Meridith McGraw and Alex Isenstadt report. Because of the gag order, they add, “he has leaned on surrogates and allies to spread his message” about a politically motivated witch hunt.

That group includes Sen. RICK SCOTT (R-Fla.), who made a cameo at the Manhattan courthouse yesterday to defend Trump, Kimberly Leonard writes: After sitting in the front row of the courtroom during Daniels’ testimony, Scott “walked outside and spoke to the cameras three hours into the trial. ‘I’m here because I have known Donald Trump a long time,’ he said. ‘I knew him before I was governor. I consider him a friend. And what he is going through is just despicable.’”

On the stand today … Former White House aide MADELEINE WESTERHOUT continues her testimony as a prosecution witness. More from NYT

Zooming out … Joanna Weiss examines for POLITICO Mag why Daniels has gotten much better treatment than the women at the center of the BILL CLINTON-era scandals, MONICA LEWINSKY and PAULA JONES: “She’s older, for one, and battle-tested. But she’s also far less capable of being shamed. Her long career in the adult film industry, where she rose from actress to director and impresario, inoculates her from much of the knee-jerk derision. It also gives her a sense of agency that Lewinsky and Jones never had.”

Related reads: “Who is in Trump’s Rolodex? We just found out through the hush money trial,” by Kierra Frazier

AMERICA AND THE WORLD 

MIDDLE EAST LATEST —  As Biden’s decision to withhold offensive munitions from Israel as it prepares to invade Rafah, Alex Ward dives deep on the thinking behind the West Wing’s thinking on the ultimatum to Israeli PM BENJAMIN NETANYAHU and the rocky diplomatic decisions that lie ahead: Though Biden officials hope the threat is enough to stop a major invasion of the southern Gaza town, they “struggle to explain what, exactly, crosses their red line,” while Netanyahu “appears poised to escalate the campaign, even without the U.S. president by his side.”

“The problem for Biden is Israel may already be far deeper into Rafah than he admits. … Satellite imagery seen by multiple outlets shows damaged buildings about two miles deep into the city. … They indicate Israel Defense Forces have moved beyond the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza and into the main areas of the city.”

What’s next … Fighting is likely to continue with cease-fire talks on hiatus, Alex writes. Meanwhile, large U.S. materiel shipments are still in the pipeline en route to Israel despite the pause, Reuters’ Patricia Zengerle reports: “Congressional aides estimated the delayed bomb shipment's value as ‘tens of millions’ of U.S. dollars.”

Literally blocks from the White House … “Students rally, pitch tents on F Street,” GW Hatchet

The big question … “The Biden-Netanyahu relationship is strained like never before. Can the two leaders move forward?” by AP’s Aamer Madhani, Zeke Miller and Julia Frankel

CONGRESS

GOP VS. BIDEN ON ISRAEL — Senate Minority Leader MITCH McCONNELL and other GOP leaders are pushing back hard against the weapons ultimatum, arguing “Biden can’t now put his thumb on the scale” after delivering billions in aid last month, Anthony Adragna and Burgess report: “We should not be telling them how to protect themselves. … It's a democratic ally with an elected government — a unity government — and we shouldn't be telling them how to conduct a war on their own borders,” McConnell said.

Meanwhile, Sen. JAMES RISCH (R-Idaho), the top Foreign Relations Republican, accused the Biden administration of delaying the shipment of more weapons promised to Israel than previously has been reported or acknowledged by the White House, WaPo’s Abigail Hauslohner reports: “‘There’s tank rounds, mortars, moderately armored tactical vehicles, which aren’t moving the way they should be moving,’ Risch said, describing weapons requested by Israel that his aides said the Biden administration was taking months to reach a decision on.”

An administration official responds … “[I] have not heard of us slow-walking or holding on any transfers of weapons to Israel aside of the one we announced.”

More top reads: 

• Knowing JIM BANKS: As the Fort Wayne-area congressman glides into a likely Indiana Senate seat, his relatively modest background and financial standing sets him apart from other GOP Senate nominees and further represents “a Republican Party that shifted toward working-class voters in the Trump era,” Burgess reports.
  
• “Facing Hill pressure, tech group kicks out TikTok,” by Daniel Lippman and Brendan Bordelon: “NetChoice made the move after its ties to TikTok came under scrutiny by the office of Republican House Majority Leader STEVE SCALISE. … It’s yet another blow for the popular video-sharing app, which is now in real danger of losing the fight for its life.”

2024 WATCH 

BUCKEYE BALLOT BATTLE — An unrelated battle over foreign money in politics has stymied state lawmakers’ latest efforts to get Biden on Ohio ballots in November, AP’s Julie Carr Smyth reports from Columbus: “Republican Secretary of State FRANK LaROSE’s proposal to ban foreign money from initiative campaigns became the poison pill that prevented a final solution for adjusting an Aug. 7 ballot deadline. … All four Republican and Democratic leaders at the Statehouse still say they’re confident the president will appear on Ohio’s ballot. It’s the how and when that remain a mystery.”

HMM — “Are R.F.K. Jr. Signature Gatherers Misleading New Yorkers for Ballot Access?” by NYT’s Rebecca Davis O’Brien: “In each of the encounters described to The Times, the names of [ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.] and his running mate, NICOLE SHANAHAN, were hidden by the paper being folded. Only the slate of electors — the little-known people designated to vote for the candidates in the Electoral College — was visible in fine print at the top.”

THE WHITE HOUSE

NIGHT OF THE HUNTER — A federal court in Delaware rejected Hunter Biden's attempt yesterday to have his felony gun charges dismissed on the basis that it violates the Second Amendment, Betsy Woodruff Swan reports: “Separately, a federal appeals court panel ruled against Biden earlier Thursday in another bid to have the charges against him tossed. The two decisions appear to clear the way for his case to head to trial on June 3, though his defense team can still pursue further appeals.”

BEYOND THE BELTWAY

IT’S 5 O’CLOCK SOMEWHERE — “Two top Border Patrol officials who partied with Mexican tequila mogul are now under investigation,”  by NBC News’ Julia Ainsley, Didi Martinez and Laura Strickler: “[T]he relationship between distiller Francisco JAVIER GONZÁLEZ and Border Patrol chief JASON OWENS and Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol sector chief GLORIA CHAVEZ has raised questions about whether the officials disclosed their contact with a foreign national, a requirement for those who receive top security clearances, and whether they accepted anything that could be a violation of ethical rules.”

TV TONIGHT — PBS’ “Washington Week”: Peter Baker, Jonathan Karl, Elaina Plott Calabro and Vivian Salama.

SUNDAY SO FAR …

CBS “Face the Nation”: Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) … Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).

NBC “Meet the Press”: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) … Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) … Michael Phelps. Panel: Monica Alba, Stephen Hayes and Jen Psaki.

FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) … Rachel Goldberg-Polin. Panel:  Karl Rove, Juan Williams, Olivia Beavers and Michael Allen.

CNN “State of the Union”: Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) … Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio). Panel: Scott Brown, Scott Jennings, Karen Finney and Ashley Allison.

PLAYBOOKERS

Bill Cassidy announced Raphael Warnock as his new National Seersucker Day co-chair.

Ed “The Trucker” Durr is running for New Jersey governor.

OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED last night at the America First Policy Institute book launch “An America First Approach to U.S. National Security” ($27.95) at the Willard Hotel: Slovak Amb. Radovan Javorčík, Hungarian Amb. Szabolcs Takács, Ukraine Amb. Oksana Markarova, Swedish Amb. Urban Ahlin, Polish Amb. Marek Magierowski, Lithuanian Amb. Audra Plepytė, Reps. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) and Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.), Pál Schmitt, Ann Linde, Robert Wilkie, Linda McMahon, Robert Lighthizer, Chad Wolf, Brooke Rollins, Keith Kellogg, Fred Fleitz, Marc Lotter and Hogan Gidley.

— SPOTTED on Wednesday night at a dinner hosted by Roy Pfautch at the Mellon Auditorium in honor of Japanese Amb. Shigeo Yamada and Maki Yamada: Sens. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Reps. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), Bill Foster (D-Ill.), Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.), Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and Keith Self (R-Texas), Fred Ryan, Roy and Abby Blunt, British Amb. Karen Pierce and Charles Roxburgh, Barbie Albritton, Ed Royce, Kevin Chaffee, Hillary Parkinson, Steve Clemons, Tara Palmeri, Alex Thompson, Nick Thompson, Margaret Carlson, Mark Ein, David Keene, Bridge Colby and John Negroponte. 

— SPOTTED on Thursday night at a party for Brody and Luke Mullins and their new book "The Wolves of K Street" ($31.49) at the home of Glenn Simpson and Mary Jacoby: Marcus Brauchli, Elaina Plott, Kristen Hinman, Bill Duryea, Michael Schaffer, John Bresnahan, Paul Kane, Susan Davis and Adam Aigner-Treworgy, Laura Meckler, Kristina Peterson, Brett Forrest, Mike Isikoff, Byron Tau, Kenny Day, Jack Shafer, Ted Mann, Tory Newmyer, Josh Dawsey, Aruna Viswanatha, Cuneyt Dil and Jerry Seib.

— SPOTTED at Madam's Organ last night for Suspicious Package's 16th anniversary concert: Tim Burger, Josh Meyer, Christina Sevilla, Bryan Greene, Bob Hagemann, Jeff Zeleny, Fin Gomez, Rodell Mollineau, Raquel Krähenbühl, Steve Rochlin, Bill Duggan, Neil Grace, Edward Wong, Bruce Kieloch, Bay Fang, Andy Rabens, Puru Trivedi, Sarakshi Rai, Rafael Bernal, Tom Williams, Bernd Debusmann, Taka Abe, Amirah Sequeira, Glenn Simpson, Ariel Gold, Marc Raimondi, Fraser Jackson, Cristobal Vasquez and Rafael Mathus Ruiz.

NEW NOMINEES — The White House announced that Biden is nominating Shannon Estenoz as deputy Interior secretary, Christopher Lamora as ambassador to the Central African Republic and David Meale as ambassador to Bangladesh. Biden is also planning to nominate Kristin Johnson, “a Democratic commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to fill a top role at the US Treasury Department overseeing banks,” per Bloomberg.

TRANSITION — Max Luong is now speechwriter to SEC Chair Gary Gensler. He previously was director of executive comms at SKDK and is a DCCC alum.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Louis A. Bertolotti, a regional political manager at NFIB and an RNC alum, and Mariell Cordova Bertolotti, a senior associate at KPMG Corporate Finance, welcomed Mariella Isadora Bertolotti on Tuesday. She came in at 8 lbs and 20 inches long. Pic … Another pic

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) … Reps. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), Pete Stauber (R-Minn.) and John Curtis (R-Utah) … Howard Ou … DHS’ Daniel Watson (4-0) … Jonathan Powell of the Motion Picture Association … Bloomberg News’ Craig Gordon and Jorja Siemons … N.Y. Mag’s Gabe Debenedetti … Stan Greenberg of Greenberg Research … POLITICO’s Mike Lee, Courtney Rohrbach, Chris Farmer, Christine Mui and Ariel Wittenberg … Punchbowl’s Andrew Desiderio … Finch Fulton … American Forest and Paper Association’s Fara Sonderling … Doug Farrar of the FTC … CNN’s Jeremy Herb … Chris Tuttle  … NBC’s Melissa Frankel … Gary Goldberg of Dentons … Clarence Tong … Andrew Card … Mercatus Center’s Veronique de Rugy … Brad Bannon … Michael Turk … Maggie Karchmer of Wiley Rein … Rachel Drian … Abbey Brandon … Adam Janofsky … Tim Powderly of Apple … Ian O’Keefe of Rep. Derek Kilmer’s (D-Wash.) office … Grant Cummings of BP … Terry Holt … former Sens. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) and Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) … former Rep. Steve Gunderson (R-Wis.) … Meredith Dodson of the Coalition on Human Needs

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