POLITICO Playbook PM: SCOOP: Milwaukee emerges as favorite for ’24 GOP convention

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DOG DAYS — @burgessev: “There is a lost dog following Sen. [MIKE CRAPO] around in the Dirksen building. Crapo: ‘I wondered why you guys were all looking at me.’ It is not his dog. It just went into a hearing room.” (Burgess’ tweet, with pic) … Burgess followed up to note that the pup was picked up by a staffer, while offering this penetrating takeaway: “I could break a story on BBB set to pass the Senate and it would get less traction than this dog tweet.”

WE’RE NOT MAKING THIS UP — DCCC Chair SEAN PATRICK MALONEY went on “Morning Joe” today and reminisced about the “really pure” MDMA of his youth. For those of you unfamiliar with MDMA — like yours truly, who had to look it up — it’s ecstasy. (Watch)

SCOOP: MILWAUKEE TAKES LEAD IN COMPETITION FOR 2024 GOP CONVENTION — Leaders of the RNC are in Milwaukee today touring the city with former Gov. SCOTT WALKER as part of its site selection process for the 2024 presidential convention. The verdict is already in, we’re told by someone familiar with the ongoing conversations: They love this town and it’s now the “frontrunner.” Republican Party officials are planning to tap former RNC chair and ex-White House chief of staff REINCE PRIEBUS, a Wisconsinite, as chair of the host committee if Milwaukee is selected.

One of the biggest appeals of Milwaukee, we’re told, is that it’s almost “turn-key.” The city of beer and cheese curds was supposed to host the 2020 Democratic convention before it was canceled amid the pandemic, so the infrastructure and planning are already far along. The city is also host to an annual concert series called “Summerfest,” so it’s used to dealing with massive crowds, and boasts an expansive arena.

Another perk? The funding: So far, local donors have pledged $30 million in support, the person involved said.

The group was also impressed by Milwaukee acting Mayor CHEVY JOHNSON, a Democrat who nonetheless has been making a hard sell for his town. Local law enforcement officials have also briefed them on their plans for security.

Of course, Nashville is about to give them a run for their money. The RNC will be in the country music city next week to check out that location, we hear.

ORE-GONE — Former NYT columnist NICK KRISTOF’s late-career change has been an absolute trainwreck: The Oregon Supreme Court this morning ruled that he can’t run for governor because he does not meet a three-year residency requirement, the Oregonian’s Hillary Borrud reports. “The court’s unanimous ruling leaves former House Speaker TINA KOTEK and state Treasurer TOBIAS READ as frontrunners for May’s Democratic primary, which will also feature a long list of lesser-known candidates.”

Good Thursday afternoon.

MEDIAWATCH

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — OPRAH WINFREY wants to tamp down speculation that she’s getting into the news business, even though she’s been privately exploring ways to do just that. Multiple sources told Max Tani and Daniel Lippman that in recent weeks, the iconic television broadcaster and media mogul has been in talks with high-powered West Coast entertainment and media executives about potentially launching a company focused on nonpartisan journalism and news. In a statement to POLITICO, a Winfrey spokesperson said the conversations haven’t amounted to much. “There were early conversations, but we are not moving forward,” the spokesperson said.

But word has spread fast in media and entertainment industry circles as Oprah and people from her camp have floated the idea by various prominent Hollywood figures. Sources told POLITICO that Winfrey discussed the project with ex-Disney CEO BOB IGER, and has been in touch with TIM SHRIVER about possible roles. Iger declined to comment, and Shriver did not respond to a request for comment. Winfrey has also had conversations with Hollywood executive DAVID ELLISON about working together on the new media company, but they decided not to pursue a partnership. A spokesperson for Ellison, the son of Oracle co-founder LARRY ELLISON, declined to comment.

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK II — ABC’s Martha Raddatz will anchor “This Week” on Sunday from Lviv, Ukraine.

RUSSIA-UKRAINE LATEST

SIREN: President JOE BIDEN told ABC’s Cecilia Vega that he believes Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN will invade Ukraine in “the next several days.” He added that he has “no plans to call Putin right now.” (37-second clip)

— Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN “will deliver remarks on Thursday on Russia’s growing threat of conflict at the Ukrainian border at the United Nations Security Council,” Mackenzie Wilkes writes.

— “The State Department said Russia ordered the deputy chief of mission to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, BART GORMAN, to leave the country, calling the move ‘unprovoked’ and ‘an escalatory step.’ Russia provided no details of why he was expelled,” AP’s Vladimir Isachenkov, Yuras Karmanau, Darlene Superville and Lorne Cook report.

— “Pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian authorities on Thursday traded allegations of cease-fire violations along the tense front line separating the two sides,” report WSJ’s Ann M. Simmons in Moscow and Yaroslav Trofimov in Kyiv, Ukraine. “Such exchanges have occurred regularly in the years since the conflict in Donbas began in 2014, despite a cease-fire agreed to a year later, and have occasionally erupted into wider-scale fighting. But they carry a heightened risk now amid the wider standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine.”

— The buildup of Russian troops on Ukraine’s border has turned into something of a “he-said, she-said” moment. “Secretary of Defense LLOYD J. AUSTIN III, who was joined by the head of NATO in Brussels, said Russia continued to move troops closer to Ukraine’s borders, was adding combat aircraft and was stocking up on blood supplies in anticipation of casualties on the battlefield,” NYT’s Marc Santora, Ivan Nechepurenko and Eric Schmitt report. But on the other side, the Kremlin today offered “its most detailed accounting so far of what it has described as a partial troop withdrawal.”

— Meanwhile, Schmitt reports for NYT that the “last of nearly 5,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division arrived in Poland on Thursday, Pentagon officials said, providing reassurance to a pivotal NATO ally and expertise in helping with the possible evacuation of Americans and others from Ukraine should Russia invade. The Pentagon reiterated that the troops would not enter Ukraine, but could help the Polish government deal with the possible influx of people fleeing over the border if there is a war.”

IF ONLY WE KNEW — “How Well Could Russia’s Economy Withstand Sanctions?” by WSJ’s Josh Ulick: “Russia has taken steps to buffer itself against the economic blow that sanctions could impose. The country has trimmed its budget, beefed up foreign exchange reserves and sought to diversify its trade portfolio to become less dependent on the EU for export revenues.”

ALL POLITICS

DEMS VS. DESANTIS — Rep. CHARLIE CRIST (D-Fla.) has emerged as the frontrunner in the Democratic primary to challenge Florida Gov. RON DESANTIS, outraising his opponents and securing key endorsements. But will it be enough? “The question is which Democratic candidate — if any — can actually energize Democrats in a state where Republicans have erased a decades-old voter registration advantage, President Joe Biden’s approval rating is underwater and that Donald Trump won by 3 points in a state previously known for razor-thin margins,” Gary Fineout reports in Tallahassee.

— GOP VS. DESANTIS? Matt Dixon writes from Tallahassee that Dems aren’t the only ones DeSantis is facing trouble with, as the governor “is facing resistance to some of his biggest election-year plans from an unlikely source: His own Republican colleagues in the state Senate.”

JUDICIARY SQUARE

KNOWING LEONDRA KRUGER — WaPo’s Scott Wilson reports from San Francisco on the early tenure on California’s Supreme Court for LEONDRA KRUGER, who has emerged as a top candidate for the Supreme Court. Over the course of her first few months in 2015, Kruger confounded court watchers. “The early test for Kruger on this state’s highest court captured the two sides of a jurist described at nearly every turn as a brilliant legal mind. There is her prevailing liberal outlook on many issues important to Democrats. Then there is her conservative approach to the courts — venues to interpret, not make, policy or the law.

“She may be liberal, but she is not an activist. That may pose a challenge for President Biden, who will be making a Supreme Court choice in an important election year. With his domestic policy agenda flagging, Biden is being counted on by supporters to pick a future justice who will excite Democratic voters. Kruger, while liberal in outlook, would not be an ideological choice given her interest in procedure, precedent and ensuring that the public has faith in the way the law works.”

CONGRESS

‘IMMENSE FRAUD’ — A slew of fraud cases and charges stemming from pandemic aid programs enacted by Congress is causing headaches now as regulators try to conduct oversight, WaPo’s Tony Romm writes. “Roughly two years after lawmakers approved their first tranche of rescue funds, the U.S. government is grappling with an unprecedented challenge: how to oversee its own historic stimulus effort. Totaling nearly $6 trillion, the loans, grants, direct checks and other emergency assistance summed to more than the entire federal budget in the fiscal year before the coronavirus arrived, creating a unique and long-term strain on the nation’s policymakers to ensure the funds have been put to good use.

“Policymakers and economists widely agree that the investments helped rescue the U.S. economy from the worst crisis since the Great Depression, aiding out-of-work Americans and saving businesses from shuttering for good. But the money remains hard to track. There are lingering questions as to whether it benefited those who needed it the most. And the aid continues to be a ripe target for criminals nationwide, the full extent of which is only beginning to come to light.”

THE PANDEMIC

RUNNING OUT OF CASH — The White House’s global push to get vaccinations to low- and middle-income countries is ramping up. There’s just one big problem: The effort is running out of funds, Erin Banco reports. “Without additional cash, the Biden administration could fall behind in its 2022 Covid-19 goal of getting shots into arms. That includes its work with COVAX, the global vaccine facility, and local governments to boost inoculations in the 30 countries with vaccination rates below 10 percent, the officials said.”

HOPEFUL PANDEMIC NEWS — Any hopes for a collective herd immunity to the coronavirus were likely dashed with the succession of new variants, but new figures indicate that hope remains that “future spikes will likely require much less — if any — dramatic disruption to society,” AP’s Carla Johnson writes. “About half of eligible Americans have received booster shots, there have been nearly 80 million confirmed infections overall and many more infections have never been reported. One influential model uses those factors and others to estimate that 73% of Americans are, for now, immune to omicron, the dominant variant, and that could rise to 80% by mid-March.”

THE ECONOMY

THE UNEMPLOYMENT PICTURE — “Applications for U.S. unemployment benefits rose last week but remain near historically low levels, reflecting relatively few layoffs across the economy,” AP’s Matt Ott reports. “Jobless claims rose by 23,000 to 248,000 for the week ending Feb. 12, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Claims were revised upward to 225,000 the previous week. Yet the four-week average for claims, which compensates for weekly volatility, fell by 10,500 to 243,250.”

WAGING WAR — Workers in the U.S. are seeing surges in wages at a historic rate — the fastest since 1983, “driven by a booming economy and intense competition for workers,” Victoria Guida writes. “Now, that momentum is in danger of being crushed as the Federal Reserve faces mounting pressure to fight an all-out war against inflation. … Still, if the Fed acts too aggressively, it could slow down growth or even tip the economy into recession, potentially dooming Democrats’ already slim chances of holding on to Congress. In interviews this week on Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers expressed guarded faith in Fed Chair JEROME POWELL, who has called high inflation a ‘severe threat’ to the job market and the economic recovery.”

PLAYBOOKERS

SPOTTED at a gathering on Dauphine’s patio on Wednesday night for Mariel Saez, who is leaving the White House this week: Chris Meagher, Andrew Bates, Jennifer Molina, Julie Rodriguez, Ben Halle, Ian Sams, Rachel Thomas, Kevin Munoz, Brittany Caplin, Remi Yamamoto, Pili Tobar, Mike Gwin, Caitlin Legacki, Courtney Rowe, Dani Simons, Emma Riley, Emilie Simons and Rachel Thomas.

TRANSITION — Christopher Grieco is now general counsel at Fei Labs, a crypto startup. He previously was associate deputy A.G. in the Trump administration, and is a former federal prosecutor.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Stephen Bell, senior director of media and public relations at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and a Steve Scalise alum, and Emily Bell, a Jo Ann Emerson and Susan Brooks alum, welcomed Jack Thomas Bell on Wednesday. He came in at 8 lbs, 3 oz, and joins big siblings Madeleine and Theo. Pic … Another pic

— Daniel Kroese, senior director of U.S. government affairs at Palo Alto Networks and a CISA alum, and Mary Kroese, partner at comms and PR firm Amplia Group, last Thursday welcomed Daniel “Baird” Kroese, who joins big brother Turner. Pic