Category: Politics

Brian Kemp’s political strength was already going to be tested in Tuesday’s Georgia runoffs. Then President Donald Trump made his move.

Kemp had spent months throwing his full support and political network behind Derek Dooley, a political neophyte and former football coach, in a quest to unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff — a seat Kemp himself passed on running for, to the disappointment of national Republicans who saw him as the best candidate to win.

It was a major political gambit, and one that relies on the governor’s popularity and ability to get Dooley over the finish line against a MAGA loyalist in Rep. Mike Collins and then against a strong Democratic incumbent. Early Sunday morning, Trump raised the stakes: He finally got off the sidelines and endorsed Collins, turning the Senate runoff into something of a proxy war between two of the most influential figures in Georgia politics.

Hours later, Kemp stepped into the other marquee contest in the state, endorsing Lt. Gov. Burt Jones — the Trump-backed Republican — to succeed him in the governor’s mansion.

Now, thanks to the late slate of endorsements, the governor finds himself both at odds with an increasingly influential president in the Senate race and aligned with him in the governor’s race — teeing up a complicated trial of his influence.

Tuesday’s runoff will determine the viability of Kemp’s brand of Republican politics, one willing to look beyond the conservative red meat of a MAGA Republican primary with an eye toward winning back independent and swing voters in the general election. Even when that means he’s at odds with Trump’s wishes.

The governor’s race is complicated further by billionaire Rick Jackson’s flood of spending, which quickly transformed him from a little-known candidate to one of the contest’s two leading contenders.

“Both [Jones and Dooley] face opponents with strong outside support or appeal, so the results will show how much pull Kemp still has in the Georgia GOP,” said one Georgia Republican unaffiliated with either race granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Demonstrating [his] pull will be key to any Kemp case for 2028, which would necessarily include proving he takes Georgia off the table for us as a battleground state.”

In a sign of his clout in the state, the candidates — with the exception of Collins — all featured the popular governor in campaign runoff ads, drawing him into the mix even before he officially endorsed.

“Everything I’m doing is to make sure we win in November. I’ve been very clear about that,” Kemp said at a Monday morning press conference with Dooley. “Making sure that we have the right people at the top of the ticket who can win.”

Republicans wanted Kemp to run. Instead, he put his political capital behind Dooley.

Tuesday’s runoffs come at a pivotal moment in which Kemp has largely sidestepped questions about his future, but is seen both in Georgia and nationally as a potential 2028 presidential contender as the Republican Party makes its first steps into a post-Trump future. Kemp’s approval rating hovers around 60 percent — roughly 20 points higher than Trump’s in a rapidly evolving battleground.

Many Georgia Republicans had hoped that Kemp, a popular figure, would run for the Senate seat himself — a nod to his unique strength in a finicky state, where candidates have to win with a broad coalition of voters to succeed in statewide races like he did during his reelection in 2022.

“If Kemp had jumped into this race, it would already be a seat that Republicans were counting as a flip,” said Ryan Mahoney, a Georgia-based Republican strategist and former aide to Kemp.

Instead, Republicans got a crowded field and a primary marked by bitter intraparty fighting as Ossoff kept his powder dry and amassed a significant war chest ahead of a competitive general election. The GOP’s original bullishness on flipping the blue seat turned into frustration and a feeling that Ossoff was proving more and more difficult to vanquish.

Before Trump’s last minute foray into the race, the Republican Senate contest had been marked by Kemp’s hands-on presence for Dooley, who the governor has repeatedly touted as an electable political outsider who could build the big-tent coalition needed to win. Kemp appeared at dozens of campaign stops across the state and activated his deep network of donors for his longtime friend and hand-picked candidate.

Dooley was still polling in a consistent third place for the majority of the primary — but Kemp continued to appear with him across the state, and Hardworking Americans Inc., a Kemp-aligned federal PAC, went on to spend $2 million on ads, including one featuring the governor giving a straight-to-camera pitch for Dooley. The candidate ended up finishing in a solid second place, besting Rep. Buddy Carter to make the runoff — a significant win for Kemp’s political machine.

And while Collins dominated in rural areas of the state, and Carter in his southwestern congressional district around Savannah, Dooley’s base of support emerged from the all-important metro Atlanta area.

“Dooley clearly had momentum, and that momentum showed up at the ballot box,” Mahoney said. “That momentum was fueled by Brian Kemp, and, more specifically, Brian Kemp to camera pushing people to vote for Derek.”

But there are looming questions over Kemp’s ability to pull Dooley across the finish line in the second round of voting.

Collins had already secured support from several MAGA-aligned groups before Trump left his mark on the contest, including the powerful Club for Growth and Turning Point Action.

Trump’s endorsement put the final stamp on that dynamic of MAGA vs. Kemp, solidifying the House Republican as the carrier of the populist right’s mantle in the race and putting the president in direct opposition to the governor.

“Mike is a special guy, a special congressman, a special person, and so I’d like to have everybody go out and get out and vote for this man. We love Georgia,” Trump said in a tele-rally with Collins late on Monday afternoon from France ahead of his appearance at the G7. “Mike is so important.”

But Trump’s late support for Collins comes with its own warning signs, harkening back to an embarrassing loss from earlier this month, when Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa) came up short in his run for governor after winning the president’s support just a handful of days prior.

Early voting had already closed by the time Trump endorsed Collins on Sunday, creating a narrow window for him to capitalize on the president’s coveted backing.

Trump and Kemp align in governor’s race — against an influx of cash

While the Senate contest pits the president against Kemp, the two will also be tested in the vastly different race for governor.

That contest will show whether the two leaders’ combined influence can outmatch the power of over $100 million in spending from Jackson, whose deluge of cash has upended the contest since his splashy entrance in February.

Kemp had loomed large over the contest, as both candidates tried to tie themselves to the popular governor. Shortly after the May primary, Jackson aired an ad that appeared to imply he had won the governor’s support. That ad backfired, contributing to Kemp’s decision on Sunday to back Jones, according to a person familiar with the governor’s thinking and granted anonymity to speak candidly about the endorsement.

A spokesperson for Kemp referred POLITICO to the governor’s press conference with Jones, during which he said lieutenant governor was the only pick “to make sure that Georgia remains the best place to live, work, and raise a family.” Jones had “been a trusted ally in that effort, being there every step of the way,” Kemp said.

Kemp’s decision to weigh in on the race came together in fairly quick succession. The lieutenant governor’s team was told around lunchtime on Sunday that Kemp was preparing to endorse Jones, according to a person familiar with the conversation between the two camps, granted anonymity to discuss campaign matters. Kemp’s backing was made public later that afternoon in a lengthy statement posted to social media.

Jones had already secured the president’s support almost as soon as he got into the race and has long touted his close relationship with the president. But it was Kemp’s backing that he said could cement his runoff win and propel him into the general election.

“I can’t say enough about how appreciative [Georgia Second Lady Jan Jones] and I are for this endorsement from the governor and the first lady. We think that this is exactly what’s going to put us over the top,” Jones said in a press conference Monday alongside the governor.

The candidate also released an ad on Monday featuring the governor and first lady Marty Kemp praising him as a “strong ally” and highlighting their partnership over the last several years.

“The real endorsement is tomorrow. It’s with the people of this state. And they’re going to decide who they want at the top of the ticket,” Kemp said at his morning appearance with Dooley.

​Politics

A Libertarian challenger in a top Iowa battleground says Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the district’s current representative, GOP Rep. Zach Nunn, privately pressured him to drop out.

Marco Battaglia, who hopes to run for the state’s 3rd Congressional District, has faced multiple challenges from Republicans over his eligibility and was even struck from the ballot on Monday — though he plans to appeal the state election panel’s decision.

Battaglia said Nunn visited his home on June 7 to convince him to exit the race. Then, a day later, came a call from Washington — and Kennedy, allegedly, was on the other line.

Battaglia said Kennedy told him that it would be a direct blow to Kennedy, personally, if Republicans lost the seat.

“If this seat flips, it’ll make my life hell,” Kennedy said, according to Battaglia’s recollection. It’s not clear what Kennedy was referring to, but the HHS secretary could face impeachment should Democrats retake control of the House.

Battaglia shared screenshots of his call log with POLITICO that show an incoming call from a phone number Kennedy has previously used. The call arrived at 12:44 p.m. central and lasted nearly 12 minutes. POLITICO also reviewed screenshots of text messages Battaglia later sent to the number associated with Kennedy, which did not garner responses.

Kennedy’s office did not respond to a request for comment. In recent weeks, the secretary has stepped up his involvement in battleground races, visiting Wisconsin Rep. Derrick Van Orden’s 3rd District and Democratic Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s 9th District. He will appear with GOP Rep. Tom Barrett in Michigan’s 7th District on Tuesday.

Nunn’s campaign did not dispute that he visited Battaglia’s home, but adviser Annie Kuhle said in a statement that the purpose was to inform Battaglia of challenges to his signatures and invite him to cooperate with the investigation.

Kuhle said there is “strong evidence” Battaglia’s signatures were gathered “by dark-money outside groups with ties to the Democrat Party.” Nunn’s meeting with Battaglia was first reported by the Des Moines Register.

Battaglia was removed from the ballot Monday after the Iowa State Objection Panel — which adjudicates challenges to candidate eligibility — determined he was ineligible because he did not use his legal name: Mark Thomas Andersen.

Battaglia told POLITICO he plans to appeal the decision, as his party did in 2024 when all Libertarians were removed from the ballot for not following state law in their nominating process. When that appeal failed, Battaglia and other Libertarian candidates launched write-in campaigns.

“Iowa Republicans know they can’t win on ideas, so they are resorting to their favorite tactic: suppressing voter choice,” Evan McMahon, chair of the national Libertarian Party, said in a statement. “When a third party gathers a record number of signatures and earns its place on the ballot, the answer is to debate them, not to bully them, bribe them, or sue them off the ballot.”

The 3rd District is one of Democrats’ top targets this cycle, a seat Nunn won by fewer than four points in 2024 even as Trump won the state by 13 points. State Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, the Democratic nominee, is a member of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red to Blue” program.

Republicans have already spent nearly $4.5 million to defend the seat, according to the political advertising tracker AdImpact. Republicans warn Battaglia’s presence on the ballot — drawing conservative votes away from Nunn — could tip a close race.

The Republican National Committee did not respond to a request for comment.

Battaglia says Nunn, during his June 7 visit to his home, offered him a deal and referenced the HHS secretary: “We’ll fly you out to D.C. and you can be my wing man,” Nunn allegedly said, per Battaglia’s recollection. “We’ll make you the poster boy for election integrity, and we’ll hang out with Robert Kennedy Jr.”

Nunn’s campaign denies the representative said any such thing. “No offer, inducement, or thing of value was ever proposed or provided in exchange for withdrawing the nomination petitions,” said Kuhle, the Nunn campaign strategist, in a statement.

In a text message to Kuhle and Nunn after the meeting, Battaglia said he would “reconsider withdrawal” if Nunn pledged to “formally introduce impeachment of the President for Treason, Bribery, and other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” according to a screenshot reviewed by POLITICO.

A spokesperson for Nunn’s campaign, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said they “kept stakeholders, including the White House, informed of our concerns,” but they “did not ask them to take any action on our behalf, and were not aware of any actions taken until Marco informed us of the call [with Kennedy].”

Battaglia is a longtime Kennedy supporter who backed him when he launched a Democratic bid for president in 2023. Battaglia said he met Kennedy during a campaign stop in Des Moines in August 2023, when the then-Democrat spoke at a coffee shop. Battaglia said he presented Kennedy with a gift: A VHS tape of “The Second Gun,” a documentary exploring an alternate theory of Kennedy’s father’s assassination.

“He seemed to respond to it warmly,” Battaglia said. “It was a nice gift.”

​Politics

WINTRY MIX: The Knicks ticker-tape parade. World Cup festivities. Pride Month. America 250. The Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce wedding.

It’s all happening this summer in New York City — and those events and more may coincide with a surge in federal immigration enforcement at the direction of President Donald Trump’s administration.

The convergence of events as an ICE crackdown looms has not gone unnoticed by Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and immigrant-rights advocates who are already bracing for a hectic summer in the city.

Hochul last week warned that a surge would “create chaos” especially as the World Cup was getting underway. The mayor told reporters earlier today that the city — and especially the NYPD — is prepared to handle the uncertainty.

“We are the biggest city in the country,” Mamdani said at a press conference in Queens. “We are used to big events, and we are incredibly excited for this one.”

Yet the potential operation — teased repeatedly by Trump border czar Tom Homan — adds a different dimension to the center-of-the-world festivities and celebratory atmosphere that’s pervasive in New York at the moment.

“We’ve just had a lot of practice with being in the streets — thankfully celebrating,” said state Sen. Pat Fahy, a Democrat. “It’s New York. People are not going to tolerate any type of surge here.”

Homan has insisted the federal government’s New York campaign will be much different than the Minneapolis crackdown six months ago, which ultimately led to civil unrest and the deaths of two U.S. citizens.

He told SiriusXM’s Chris Cuomo last week that federal immigration agents would take a refined, precision-based approach.

“Every day we leave the office and we know exactly who we’re looking for, more likely where we will find them, because we have a targeted operation,” Homan said. “We have a folder on each target. It’s not gonna be driving around looking for people that we have no idea who we’re looking for. It’s gonna be a well-planned, targeted operation.”

Trump’s aggressive deportation campaign led Hochul and the Democratic-led Legislature this year to approve a package of measures meant to protect undocumented immigrants.

Law enforcement officers are banned from wearing masks, federal immigration authorities cannot execute civil deportation warrants in so-called sensitive locations like houses of worship, and the state moved to end cooperative agreements between local police and ICE.

“We’re much better prepared as a result of that legislation,” Fahy said. “We’ve sent a very clear and strong message that ICE is not welcome.”

It’s those very same laws, though, that stoked Homan’s plans to focus on New York. He’s warned that, without cooperation with local law enforcement, ICE will need to take a much more expansive approach to deportations.

It’s all led immigration advocates to ready communities for an unpredictable summer.

“New Yorkers are going to stand up for their neighbors,” said Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition. “You’re going to see local communities organizing more, potentially protests, people standing up for New York and New Yorkers. This is an attack on all 19 million New Yorkers.” — Nick Reisman with Gelila Negesse

FROM CITY HALL

POLICING PARTY CITY: Days after being sworn in as mayor, Mamdani declared that his promise to abolish the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group wasn’t up for debate.

“We need to disband the SRG,” he said on Jan. 28 after the unit had been involved in arresting anti-ICE protesters. “I’m currently in conversations with the police commissioner about the ways in which we do so that are operational.”

Six months later, the SRG remains intact — and Mamdani is singing a very different tune.

When asked today if it was appropriate for the police department to deploy the SRG in response to the chaos following the Knicks’ NBA Finals victory, the mayor had this to say: “The NYPD handled themselves appropriately in delivering safety across the five boroughs.”

Mamdani told reporters he remains committed to the idea of “decoupling” the SRG’s protest responsibilities from its counterterrorism duties and that he continues to talk with his NYPD commissioner, Jessica Tisch, about how “to disband SRG to ensure that we have responses to each.” He did not give a timeline for how soon that could happen or elaborate on the nature of the holdup, though.

Mamdani’s thumbs up for the SRG’s response to Saturday’s Midtown mayhem speaks to the awkward terrain he’s navigating as his more politically moderate police commissioner continues to reject his push for breaking up the unit.

Tisch, in fact, has continued to publicly and privately praise the SRG as a critical tool in the NYPD toolbox. On Sunday, she gave members of the unit a salute in a department-wide email thanking officers for their work the night before, when frenzied Knicks fans set fire to or destroyed several school buses in Midtown, smashed NYPD vehicles with bats and even fired shots in Times Square, wounding a 17-year-old.

“You managed to meet the challenges that came with one of the most closely watched periods this city has seen in years,” Tisch wrote in the email obtained by Playbook that included a shoutout to those engaged in “SRG disorder-control response.”

While pushing for breaking up the SRG as a mayoral candidate last year, Mamdani noted the unit’s members face disproportionately high rates of misconduct claims, especially as it relates to violating protesters’ First Amendment rights.

In dragging his feet on the SRG issue, Mamdani has put himself at odds with his own political base.

The local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America issued a rare public rebuke of the mayor Friday for not making good on his campaign pledge to eliminate the SRG.

The DSA’s statement also knocked Mamdani for not fulfilling a separate campaign pledge to abolish the NYPD’s gang database (which critics say is a “drag net” for young Black and Latino New Yorkers, but which Tisch touts as a necessity). On top of that, the DSA — Mamdani’s “political home” — also took aim at him for supporting an increase to the NYPD’s uniformed headcount this year despite having promised as a candidate to keep it flat. — Gelila Negesse and Chris Sommerfeldt 

From the Capitol

GUN BILL SURVIVES: The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to a New York law aimed at opening up gun companies to civil liability suits.

Federal law has made the firearms industry generally immune to lawsuits since 2005. But state Sen. Zellnor Myrie proposed a workaround in 2021, authoring a statute to expand New York’s ability to sue manufacturers and dealers whose “reckless” actions endanger public safety.

The law that passed was quickly challenged by the gun industry. A series of lower courts have upheld the law in recent years, and the Supreme Court has now decided it won’t consider an appeal.

“For New Yorkers and residents of the ten other states that have adopted similar laws — covering close to 117 million Americans — this serves as affirmation for victims, survivors, and communities across the nation that live with the realities of gun violence on a daily basis,” Myrie said in a statement. “We are not helpless. Gun violence is not inevitable.” — Bill Mahoney

IN OTHER NEWS

— ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: Progressives Champions PAC, which has spent nearly $400,000 in attack ads against NY-17 Democratic candidate Cait Conley, is reportedly funded by Republican groups. (Popular Information)

— MAKE IT MAKE CENTS: Mamdani’s administration will no longer delay billions of dollars in repayments to contracted nonprofits. (NBC New York)

— INSURANCE SCRAMBLE: Federal cuts will leave 450,000 New Yorkers enrolled in the state’s Essential Plan without healthcare coverage beginning next month. (New York Focus)

Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.

​Politics

No European country has infuriated Donald Trump more than Spain. Now it’s desperate to win his World Cup.

Teenage superstar Lamine Yamal, Rodri and co. enter the tournament as joint favorites alongside France. With the U.S. president apparently intent on making this a World Cup that projects his personal influence and America’s soft power, victory would be sweet for Spanish soccer fans — but especially so for their prime minister.

Outspoken socialist leader Pedro Sánchez, a supporter of Atlético Madrid, has clashed spectacularly with Trump over the Iran war, but also regarding NATO spending and Israel’s assault in Gaza. Meanwhile their policies on issues from energy to immigration could hardly be further apart.

Read the full story about the failing Washington-Madrid relationship here.

​Politics

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in the state’s rancorous GOP gubernatorial runoff, aligning the popular governor with President Donald Trump on their preferred candidate.

Kemp’s last-minute public blessing of Jones on Sunday night comes just days before the Tuesday election and marks his clearest effort yet to shape the race to succeed him in the governor’s mansion, after months of staying on the sidelines of one of Georgia’s highest-profile political contests.

It’s also a new point of agreement between Kemp and Trump, who just hours earlier sided against the governor’s handpicked candidate in the Georgia Senate runoff.

The endorsement could boost Jones as he faces off against Rick Jackson, who has poured millions of his own money into the race, making it among the most expensive gubernatorial primaries on record.

Kemp said Jones “has been a strong, trusted ally in those victories for the people of our state” in a post on X. “Burt knows how to get things done as governor because that’s what he has done as a state senator and as your Lt. Governor,” he wrote.

Kemp did not mention Jackson in his endorsement post, but he took aim at the Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms, who has faced questions over her rocky tenure as Atlanta’s mayor but ultimately clinched a resounding victory in the May Democratic primary.

The governor was the subject of ads from both Jones and Jackson in the final days of the GOP runoff. An ad implying Jackson had Kemp’s endorsement “definitely didn’t help Rick,” one person familiar with the governor’s thinking said.

Tuesday’s runoff between Jones and Jackson has become a test of Trump — and now Kemp’s — political influence in the perennial battleground, fueled by an unprecedented influx of campaign spending. Jackson has spent $100 million of his own money, and has seen a rise in the polls. A recent Cygnal Political analysis showed Jackson with a 12-point lead, while a recent CivicLens Research survey found Jones ahead by roughly 10 points, foreshadowing a close battle to the finish.

Jones finished first in the primary last month with 38 percent, while Jackson earned 32 percent of the vote.

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Arriving in the U.S. from Belgium to cover the World Cup, one overarching controversy stood out from the Iran war, visas and commercial exploitation: Should POLITICO call the sport football or soccer?

Our style guide entry — “The worldwide sport should be referred to as football in Europe and soccer in the U.S. In European copy, refer to American football for the different U.S. sport played in the NFL” — didn’t end the debate.

Ultimately, America won the internal argument (quelle surprise!) and we’ll be calling it soccer for the next five weeks, despite FIFA’s name literally having the word football in it.

Lucky, really, that it’s not the Fédération Internationale de “Soccer“ Association — as that would have sparked some confusion about which FISA exactly we were talking about in the newsroom this summer. Surveillance, section 702 and Bill Pulte? Or the low block, gegenpressing and Gianni Infantino?

​Politics

DALLAS — Andrew Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s point person on the 2026 World Cup, said allowing Iran’s national team to enter the U.S. a day before its matches is an example of the administration being nice.

“We want them to be able to compete,” Giuliani said in an interview Sunday in Dallas. “Even just coming in the day before the match, I think is another example of the goodwill gesture to the team.” He said 31 Iranian players and the team’s coaches have received visas and that the arrangements “should not affect the integrity of the team.”

The comments come after Iran’s ambassador to Mexico, Abolfazl Pasandideh, told POLITICO that Iran’s presence in the U.S. for the World Cup should be read as a positive gesture from his country, as Tehran and Washington inch toward an agreement on ending the war that began in late February.

The Iranian team is traveling to the U.S. today from Tijuana, Mexico, where it moved its pre-tournament training camp from Tucson, Arizona, in light of the ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Iran. Giuliani described the move as the “best solution for all parties involved,” noting that Tijuana remains a short flight from host cities including Los Angeles and Seattle, where Iran will play its group stage matches.

“That was a discussion from the top of [the] U.S. government, and with FIFA as well,” Giuliani said.The possibility of a politically charged matchup remains on the horizon: If the U.S. and Iran both place second in their respective groups, they will play each other on July 3 in the round of 32 in Dallas.

While defending Trump’s recent military actions against Iran, Giuliani also framed the tournament as a potential opportunity for sports diplomacy.

“This is a great moment, I think, for freedom-loving Iranians [and] freedom-loving Iranian Americans to be able to celebrate their soccer team coming to the United States and enjoy that, and look for the freedoms that can exist in Iran, right?” Giuliani said. “This can be one of those moments when you talk about sports diplomacy.”

​Politics