Race cars could save Joe Biden. Seriously.
Formula E — the world’s only all-electric racing series — aims to do something never before attempted: Using sports to solve a major policy problem.
Joe Biden’s path to victory in November isn’t linear. In fact, it might just run along the loop of a racetrack.
In 2022, electric vehicles were a major point in Biden’s massive Inflation Reduction Act. His administration saw them as a way to compete with China’s economic and technological ascension, combat climate change and create jobs at home. But convincing lawmakers, let alone the public, to get behind a major overhaul of how America drives — particularly as Donald Trump is hammering EVs as a whiny liberal waste of time — will take a lot more than dry policy papers about carbon emissions.
“Voters might not like or understand regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency or Department of Energy loan programs,” writes David Ferris in this week’s Friday Read. “But perhaps they can relate to some old-fashioned competition.”
That’s where Formula E, the world’s premier electric car race, comes in. “It’s a sexy treat that can do the work of selling Biden’s huge and often-unsexy climate agenda,” Ferris writes. “In the best of all worlds, Formula E’s high-tech cars would be a liberal answer to NASCAR — a major sporting phenomenon that seamlessly aligns with an entire political worldview.”
But will the White House realize the opportunity it has to get into the race?
“Politico needs to issue a correction. It’s Uniparty Speaker Johnson, NOT ‘Conservative Speaker Johnson.’”
Can you guess who said this about your favorite publication and conservative House Speaker Mike Johnson? Scroll to the bottom for the answer.**
The Fight to Free Evan … Today marks one year since Russian agents arrested Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on absurd charges of espionage. Since then, the Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones CEO Almar Latour, has played a key role in the diplomatic effort to bring him home. In the latest episode of POLITICO Deep Dive, Ryan Lizza speaks with Latour about his part in negotiating what’s essentially a hostage situation with Vladimir Putin — and how the 2024 election could change Gershkovich’s fate. Meanwhile, Gershkovich’s close friend, journalist Linda Kinstler, has been exchanging letters with him. “Hello from sunny Moscow!” he wrote to her recently. “He always had a sense of humor,” she writes.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) filed a so-called motion to vacate against Speaker Mike Johnson last week, setting up a possible vote on booting him from the House’s top spot. You’ve probably already heard about that, but we’ve got some tips for you if you want to sound like a real insider. (From Congress editor Kate Irby.)
- If a friend insists we’re about to see the second speaker ejected in less than a year, pump the brakes. Bring up that, unlike Kevin McCarthy, Democrats might actually help Johnson — especially if he puts some form of Ukraine aid on the House floor. And if he doesn’t diss the entire Democratic caucus on TV days beforehand.
- You can add that even other conservatives don’t really sound on board at this point. No one but Greene has publicly committed to voting him out. Several Republicans who voted to boot McCarthy have said they’re not ready to do the same on Johnson. The speaker-fight fatigue is real.
- But, someone muses aloud, isn’t it odd for conservatives to boot McCarthy but not Johnson over an incredibly similar spending deal? Sure, you can respond, but the issues with McCarthy went deeper than that. Some Republicans felt the former speaker was comfortable lying directly to their faces. With Johnson, they may disagree with him or even call him weak, but they still trust that he’s honest.
- Sound like a real Congress nerd with some House majority math: Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) is leaving Congress on April 19, which will drop Johnson to a one-vote margin (meaning, on partisan tallies he can only lose one Republican and still pass legislation under a simple majority). He could be stuck with that margin until June, given assumptions about how a few special elections will play out. Greene hasn’t said when she plans to force an ouster vote, but that gives her some room to maneuver if she wants to push it when Johnson is most vulnerable.
NBC Staffers’ Power Play … Whatever you think of NBC News’ abrupt firing of former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel following intense and public criticism from within the newsroom, it reveals a pivotal shift in the way we do journalism, argues senior media writer Jack Shafer. Gone are the days when top editorial brass held all the power. Now workers are empowered to challenge the higher-ups. “The bosses haven’t lost control,” he writes, “but they’re no longer completely in charge, and that is changing the way journalism gets done.”
The New Kennedy Voter … Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took the next step in his campaign to disrupt the election on Tuesday, announcing his running mate — Silicon Valley attorney and former Democrat Nicole Shanahan — at a rally in Oakland, California. Jeremy White was on the scene, where a crowd of anti-vaccine, anti-establishment, conspiracy-minded fans cheered Kennedy as a crusader against the evils of a “uniparty” government. It was a long way from Camelot. “They ask not what their government can do for them,” White writes, “but what it has done to them.”
**Who Dissed answer: That would be Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who filed a motion to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) following his passage of a government funding bill with mostly Democratic votes. She was referencing a story about the potential consequences of her decision to challenge Johnson after the chaotic removal of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year.
