International

And once again, Donald Trump is at the center of the debate. Playbook co-author Rachael Bade flew to Orange County, California, to watch the fireworks at the RNC's winter meeting, where three-time incumbent chairwoman Ronna McDaniel faced a challenge from conservative lawyer Harmeet Dhillon. To understand what this fight is about, Rachael had breakfast with Bill Palatucci, a longtime party insider who is also a close ally of Chris Christie and a strong critic of Donald Trump. In this week's episode, Palatucci explains how the Dhillon-McDaniel race isn't just about the RNC presidency, it's about who will lead the GOP…

“As the saying goes, personnel is politics, and at the end of the day, if we have pink-haired communists teaching our children, we are in big trouble,” Trump said. “We are at the bottom of the list in education and yet we are the biggest spenders, but we will be first in education no matter where you go anywhere in the world.” Although much of education policy is dictated by state and local governments, Trump's proposals continue to represent a radical departure from longstanding approaches. Taken as a whole, they represent an attempt by the former president to put his…

But for the stubborn team seeking votes for Harmeet Dhillon, the California national committeeman taking on McDaniel, the friendly atmosphere is all the more reason to keep making their case. Parading their high-profile surrogates, former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and country artist John Rich, through the hotel, Dhillon's team placed them with members who thought they could still be persuaded that the RNC needs change. As a GOP member who attended the meeting said, RNC members have “historically stabbed each other in the back” in secret ballots, citing past races for lower leadership positions where candidates found out the…

Chao's statement is an extremely rare case of the former transportation secretary getting into the political tangle that her former boss has tended around her since the end of her administration. It suggests that discomfort with Trump's anti-Asian rhetoric has reached a new level amid several high-profile shootings of Asian Americans. On at least half a dozen occasions, Trump has taken to his social media platform, Truth Social, to criticize McConnell's leadership and suggest, among other things, that he is conflicted because of his wife's connection to China. Last fall, in a message widely seen by both Republicans and Democrats…