Hello and welcome back to The Best & The Brightest. I’m Leigh Ann Caldwell. Heads are exploding on Capitol Hill today after the Department of Justice expanded the $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund for anyone whom Trump determines has been wronged by the federal government. Now, the agreement also prevents the I.R.S. from pursuing any tax claims against Trump or any members of his family. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he’s “not a big fan” of the so-called “anti-weaponization fund.”

In today’s issue, I take a look at two of the biggest players in the president’s political operation: James Blair and Chris LaCivita. Blair is set to leave the White House, at which point he’s expected to coordinate among Republicans and direct Trump’s $350 million MAGA Inc. war chest. LaCivita, meanwhile, is one of the most sought-after strategists in politics right now—if not for his cutthroat tactics, then for his access to the big guy. A lot is riding on their success: Republican control of Congress, of course, as well as their own political reputations and future economic largesse.

Plus, I have a scoop about the Georgia Senate Republican primary and insight into how Trump’s vengeance campaign against sitting members of Congress could threaten his agenda—and his ballroom. Meanwhile, my amazing colleague Marianna Sotomayor has a follow-up on her scoop from last week about House Democrats’ plans to punish the deadweights among them. And she has receipts… literally.

Also mentioned in this issue: Jon Ossoff, Mike Collins, Derek Dooley, Brian Kemp, Ken Paxton, John Cornyn, Anna Paulina Luna, Cory Mills, Susie Wiles, David Axelrod, Lindsey Graham, Ed Gallrein, Eric Cantor, Jason Miyares, Ryan Smith, Brett Kappel, Jeff Roe, and more.

Campaign Memo

Georgia on my mind: As you know, there are a number of primaries today, including in Georgia, where three Republican candidates are vying for the nomination to challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff. None of the contenders is expected to get a majority, which means a runoff is likely—probably between Rep. Mike Collins and Derek Dooley, the former University of Tennessee football coach and close friend of Gov. Brian Kemp. Kemp has been aggressively supporting Dooley, which has helped his campaign so far, but could hurt in a runoff. Trump, meanwhile, hasn’t endorsed in the race, but I’m told he could weigh in for Collins if the election does go to a second round. After all, Trump has despised Kemp ever since the governor pushed back against his desire to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.
The insubordinate six: Meanwhile, in Texas, Trump’s decision to endorse Ken Paxton over incumbent John Cornyn in the Republican Senate primary could seriously complicate the president’s billion-dollar ballroom request. Cornyn, after all, no longer has any real incentive to support the president’s agenda. Ditto outgoing Sen. Bill Cassidy, who failed to make the Louisiana runoff on Saturday in large part because of Trump’s vendetta against him. (Right on cue, Cassidy voted to advance the Democrats’ war powers resolution tonight for the first time.) Sen. Thom Tillis, who declined to run for reelection after Trump vowed to defeat him, is likewise unshackled. Then there are Sen. Rand Paul, who has long had an independent streak; Sen. Susan Collins, who is running in a blue state and needs to demonstrate her independence from the president; and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, whom the president has previously tried and failed to defeat.

Given the Senate’s three-seat margin, six rebellious Republicans will be… problematic for the president. I was told months ago that Trump had been warned about the dynamic, but as one senior G.O.P. aide put it, “He does what he’s going to do.” Never mind that Republicans are now fretting that they’ll have to spend as much as $200 million to keep Texas in their column.

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The Cloakroom

Marianna Sotomayor

The D.C.C.C. naughty list: After scooping last week that Democratic leadership is considering punishing members who have done little or nothing to help win back the majority, I heard from a number of frustrated lawmakers and aides who are ready to name names. Earlier today, moments after it was sent to offices, I obtained the D.C.C.C. list showing how much lawmakers have donated to the committee this term, through the start of April. Around 30 Democrats have paid nothing, while another 44 have donated 25 percent of their goal or far less. (The totals may have changed in the past month, given the redistricting wars and leadership’s push for members to get it together.)

Notably, 16 lawmakers from the Congressional Black Caucus hadn’t donated as of March, even as they’ve tried to push their own colleagues for extra support to counteract the Supreme Court–sanctioned redistricting that threatens to eliminate a third of the group this cycle.

While Democrats are unlikely to slap term limits on colleagues who have sat atop committees for years, the D.C.C.C. list could be weaponized later this year to argue that certain senior members don’t deserve the chair. Members are already chattering that Rep. Bobby Scott, who wants to stay atop the House Education and Workforce Committee, has donated less than 10 percent of his goal and has about $158,000 cash on hand—a less-than-desirable amount to shore up Democrats on his committee. Rep. Maxine Waters donated a tad more between February and March to reach 15 percent, but offices I’ve surveyed don’t think that’s enough. Rep. Jim Costa, who has waited years to chair the Agriculture Committee and lost last term to Rep. Angie Craig, had donated nothing by the end of March.

Fifteen other Progressive Caucus members also haven’t donated, including some with the loudest microphones, like Rep. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. Moderate members aren’t excluded either: Rep. Pat Ryan and Rep. Jared Moskowitz hadn’t donated by the first quarter, while Rep. Josh Gottheimer gave only $13,400 despite sitting on more than $11 million after his gubernatorial run in New Jersey.

The numbers also show who is looking to move up in leadership by exceeding their dues, including Reps. Sara Jacobs, Lori Trahan, and Lauren Underwood—a trio that, Leigh Ann has heard, is likely to vie for the caucus vice chair position if Democrats win back the majority. A few others dubbed “Majority Makers” for donating more than necessary are Reps. Salud Carbajal, Tim Kennedy, Sam Liccardo, Brad Schneider, and Ritchie Torres. Congratulations to all.

And now, the main event…

Trump’s PAC Men

James Blair and Chris LaCivita are set to embark on an ambitious midterm agenda, working amid a sprawling web of interlinked super PACs, LLCs, and dark money groups that make it difficult to know who’s funding whom—and how much anyone is getting paid. It’s either sinister or brilliant, depending on one’s politics, but almost certainly both.

Leigh Ann Caldwell

With just five months to go before the midterms, White House deputy chief of staff James Blair is returning to the private sector—just in time to oversee an absolute geyser of Republican political spending. In many ways, it’s a return to the job that he has trained for all his career, only with higher stakes and a larger profile.

After all, as President Trump’s gatekeeper, Blair had the power to dispense or withhold endorsements, typically the precursor to a tidal wave of campaign money. And over the past several months, the Republican primaries have been defined, in large part, by Blair’s influence. Now he’s expected to lead the party’s general-election effort to hold the House—possibly, he told me, with a top job at MAGA Inc., the Trump super PAC positioned to become a nexus of campaign cash.

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Blair, who turns 37 next week, is among the chief architects of Republicans’ election strategy, which includes an evolving MAGA financing network—a byzantine web of interlocking super PACs, LLCs, and dark money groups empowered by two decades of Supreme Court rulings, plus an arcane 2024 F.E.C. decision that Blair leveraged to help Trump’s comeback. By design, it’s difficult to know who is actually funding various political groups, who is getting paid, and how much. But it’s clear that power and influence have been vested in a few key political advisors whose constellation of firms works in lockstep with the White House.

The President’s Men

After helping to elect Florida Reps. Anna Paulina Luna and Cory Mills in 2022, Blair found an ally and admirer in Susie Wiles—a fellow former member of the DeSantis inner circle, who facilitated Blair’s rapid ascent in Trumpworld. Now, less than three years after gaining Trump’s trust for his role in the president’s 2024 comeback, Blair will be tasked with winning the midterms and holding the House majority: a Herculean effort in which he will have access to the president’s $350 million super PAC war chest, assuming Trump decides to spend it.

At MAGA Inc., Blair will work in tandem with Chris LaCivita, the longtime operative who has become one of the most coveted Republican strategists due to his own hand in Trump’s 2024 victory, as co-campaign manager with Wiles. His disciplined, if cutthroat, strategy for the famously unrestrained candidate was essential to the campaign’s success. Since then, candidates have competed to hire him partly for his aura—after all, if you’re working with LaCivita, it sure seems like you’ve got the imprimatur of the president, too. “There are candidates who believe that if you hire those guys, then … you have the Good Housekeeping seal of approval,” David Axelrod, Obama’s former chief strategist, told me. “I think it’s a fair guess that there won’t be any tag days for him.”

Among the countless political operatives flourishing in the Trump II era, LaCivita has distinguished himself as a true political Zelig. He’s been hired by no fewer than 14 super PACs or campaigns this cycle, including Digital Freedom Fund, a pro-crypto super PAC, and Sen. Lindsey Graham’s campaign. He is personally running the MAGA KY super PAC, which helped Trump’s candidate, Ed Gallrein, defeat Rep. Thomas Massie. He’s also been working to reelect Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who is fighting for his political life against primary opponent Ken Paxton. (In a late twist, Trump just endorsed Paxton. Nobody’s perfect…) Over a recent flurry of texts, LaCivita downplayed the significance of all this. “I win campaigns and that’s why they hire me. News at 5,” he told me, adding that his work with the Make America Fentanyl Free PAC was pro bono.

Even many campaigns that don’t directly employ LaCivita are connected to him somehow—either through his former jobs, personal relationships, or webs of contracts with other firms. In the Virginia redistricting effort, for example, LaCivita told me he played “no professional role” in the campaign to defeat the Dem-friendly map. That was led by Virginians for Fair Maps, an organization run by former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares. But of course, everyone knows everyone: LaCivita was a general consultant to Miyares’s A.G. campaign, and his daughter was Miyares’s communications director. Virginians for Fair Maps also paid $134,500 to WinRed, where LaCivita is an unpaid board member; $301,000 to FP1, his former firm; and $177,000 to Creative Direct, the company where LaCivita ran the 2004 Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign, according to Virginia state campaign finance filings.

Referrals are part of the business of politics, obviously—as in any business. One operative told me that for some consultants, these sorts of transactions can make up more than half their revenue. Indeed, some consultants operate solely on fees for referring candidates to their network of strategists, pollsters, ad makers, and more. It’s unclear whether LaCivita made any money directly from any of these vendors. But, as they say in sales, your network is your net worth.

Winners & Losers

Blair enters the midterms with a string of wins behind him. Though he was criticized for it at the time, he ultimately proved successful in leveraging the 2024 F.E.C. ruling that allowed the Trump campaign to coordinate canvassing with outside groups—freeing up an enormous amount of candidate resources. More recently, he helped oust five of seven Indiana G.O.P. state senators who faced Trump-backed challengers after opposing his redistricting effort. Blair is “one of the most shrewd operatives in politics, and he has played an integral role in helping execute the most successful start to a presidency in modern American history,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement. “As James transitions to his new role, he will continue faithfully and successfully advancing the president’s agenda.”

Looking ahead, Blair told me that he won’t be returning to his own firm, Electoral Communications Group LLC, a subsidiary of Rapid Loop Consulting, which he divested from after joining the White House—though the Florida-based firm, which is now run by his former partner, Ryan Smith, has continued to profit in his absence, taking in $228,000 from the Virginia Republican Party and $1.78 million from Virginians for Fair Maps, for mailers related to the state’s redistricting referendum.

In the meantime, Blair is waiting on the Supreme Court’s ruling in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission before making any major decisions on the midterms—including what role the Republican National Committee will play. The R.N.C. has traditionally been a ground-game entity. But if the Supreme Court rules that candidates can coordinate with party committees on independent expenditures (e.g., television and digital ads), the R.N.C. might step in there, too.

Advocates say the SCOTUS decision could reduce the influence of super PACs, but it’s not clear what the impact will actually be. “The Supreme Court has rendered our campaign finance regulatory system largely ineffectual,” campaign finance lawyer Brett Kappel told me. “We know the last donor putting money in, and we know the first vendor getting money coming out. Before and after those points, however, the money can move through a daisy chain of nonprofits and LLCs, so the identity of the original donor and the ultimate recipient remains unknown.”

While LaCivita and Blair have managed to ride their resurgent MAGA wave so far, their fates will still ultimately depend on their records. And Trumpworld, in particular, is always producing new winners and losers. Jeff Roe, who was semi-blacklisted by the president in 2023 after he went to work for DeSantis, just scored a major victory via Trump’s endorsement of Paxton. (LaCivita and Roe are professional rivals.) Meanwhile, the outcome in Massie’s race tonight was as much a test for LaCivita as it was for Trump.

Blair has also felt the sting of defeat. Before the Virginia Supreme Court gave the G.O.P. a major boost, Trump’s redistricting efforts appeared to be faltering, and many accused Blair of running an unsuccessful strategy. Of course, he and his defenders have since taken a victory lap. But if Republicans lose the midterms, both Blair and LaCivita could see their stature shrink overnight. As one Republican operative close to Trumpworld told me: “I mean, you’re gonna get a lot more clients if you win than if you lose, right?”

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