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Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest, your news source for what everyone in Washington is really talking about. Thanks for joining me, Julia, Tina, and Peter again for another dishy edition on the whispers and murmurs in D.C. that are keeping Joe Biden, Kevin McCarthy, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries up at night. In today’s edition, news and notes on the Sununu ’24 question, Hakeem’s debt ceiling math, and more.
But first…
- Hill Harper vs. Slotkin: As I wrote earlier this week, there’s a potential Senate battle royale brewing in Michigan. Rep. Elissa Slotkin announced her candidacy on Monday with the behind-the-scenes support of outgoing Senator Debbie Stabenow, who has been trying to coalesce support around her potential successor while persuading some competitors to clear the field and instead focus on the 2026 gubernatorial race. Whether it works for Slotkin, a fundraising powerhouse, is an open question. One person who hasn’t gotten the memo, I’m hearing, is...
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| The Sununu Tease, Hakeem’s Burden, & Fettermania |
| News and notes on the talk around town: Is Chris Sununu a serious 2024 contender, or just a master brand builder and hype man? Can Hakeem Jeffries keep his most senior colleagues in office through the summer? And is there any truth to the right’s Gisele Fetterman bogeymania? |
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| As you may have heard, we’ve finally entered the shadow Republican presidential primary—a never-ending reality show with some returning characters, a cohort of new figures, plot twists galore, and plenty of gamesmanship and strategy. These early innings will likely be dominated by a few familiar storylines: longshot candidates (Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Tim Scott and Mike Pompeo) either have entered, or will soon, in order to raise money and build momentum as another rung of aspirants (Chris Christie, Glenn Youngkin, and Rick Scott) will wait things out as long as possible, hoping that a lane magically materializes. Meanwhile, Trump will lob bombs at his chief competitor, Ron DeSantis, hoping to lure him in pronto for a bitter, protracted, ugly public feud—his very specialty.
And then there are the potential candidates who may just be content being potential candidates. One name that has recently crossed my radar is Chris Sununu, the popular New Hampshire governor (and scion of another popular governor of New Hampshire) who has been publicly flirting with a bid. But among D.C. insiders, there’s a feeling that the chatter might really just be an elaborate... |
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| FOUR STORIES WE’RE TALKING ABOUT |
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| DeSantis’s Unholy Coalition |
| Ron is racking up the support of Taliban 20ers, Florida-adjacent rich guys, and other anti-Trumpers. |
| TINA NGUYEN |
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