The biggest movie in the country right now is about a civil war — in America.

If you see the film “Civil War” at a theater in downtown Washington, the scenes of the Lincoln Memorial exploding and the White House being attacked are jarring when you exit into the D.C. air. 

The movie is writer and director Alex Garland’s very in-your-face attempt to imagine the unimaginable in America — an authoritarian leader in the White House, intractable political differences being resolved through violence and the very specific horrors of modern warfare — urban fighting, refugee camps, mass atrocities, the collapse of the currency — all the things that we associate with stuff that can happen over there happening right here in the United States.

“Civil War” is also a movie about journalism.

It follows four reporters traveling from New York to Washington, D.C., via a circuitous route through Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia. 

The movie takes on a lot of the weighty issues we talk about on shows like this one: media ethics, political polarization, disinformation polluting our media ecosystem and the potential threat from an autocratic leader.

Wagner Moura plays a hardened war correspondent addicted to the battlefield. He also provides some much needed levity in the movie.

Moura is best-known for his role as Pablo Escobar in “Narcos.” But he’s also a former journalist, a political activist and a writer and director himself. His 2019 movie “Marighella” about the coup and counter-revolution in Brazil in the 1960s incurred the wrath of then-president Jair Bolsonaro in Moura’s home country of Brazil. 

Deep Dive host and Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza talked with Moura on Thursday just as Washington’s annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner festivities were getting under way. It’s the time of year when the relationship between journalists, politicians and Hollywood is at its peak in this town. 

They had a fascinating conversation about how making a movie about a new civil war changed Moura’s own personal thinking about politics, how his experience with Bolsonaro in Brazil is a warning for Americans and the role of art in politics.

Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.
Wagner Moura is a star of A24's film "Civil War".
Kara Tabor is a producer for POLITICO audio. 
Alex Keeney is a senior producer for POLITICO audio.

After months of delay, this week House Speaker Mike Johnson advanced his much awaited version of the Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan foreign aid package.

Standing between that legislation and the House floor: two very powerful committees. 

First, the House Appropriations Committee, which controls about a third of federal spending. And second, the Rules Committee, which controls access to the House floor, and which has become a problem for GOP leaders in this Congress.

Johnson needed to pick the lock on both of these committees. And there is one Member of Congress who has chaired them both. Not just in the past year — but in the past month: Oklahoma Republican Tom Cole.

Deep Dive host and Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza caught up with Cole on Thursday afternoon after he’d just testified in support of the foreign aid bill in front of his old committee. 

They got deep into the weeds of why the Rules Committee has been such a trouble spot for recent GOP speakers; and they discussed Johnson’s tenure so far and whether Cole thinks the Speaker can hang on as members threaten to oust him. 

Cole also previewed how he will run the Appropriations Committee, including how he’ll handle the controversial earmarks process. And Cole answered some prying questions from some of his favorite historians on the subject of Donald Trump.

Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.
Tom Cole is the chair of the House Appropriations committee. 
Kara Tabor is a producer for POLITICO audio. 
Alex Keeney is a senior producer for POLITICO audio.

Michael Cohen may be the only person standing between Donald Trump and jail. Three of Trump’s four criminal trials — the ones in Washington, Florida and Georgia — seem hopelessly stalled. But on this coming Monday in New York, the hush money case is set to begin.

Deep Dive guest and former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen is the star witness in the case. On this episode, he joins host and Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza to discuss how he will defend the assault on his credibility at the trial, why Alvin Bragg’s case is stronger than analysts believe, the legal tactics he’s expecting from Trump’s team and whether he ever regrets breaking with Trump.

Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.
Michael Cohen is Donald Trump's former lawyer and fixer.
Kara Tabor is a producer for POLITICO audio. 
Alex Keeney is a senior producer for POLITICO audio.

On April 1, the Florida Supreme Court issued a pair of decisions on abortion that led the Biden campaign to declare that Florida, which Democrats have lost twice to Donald Trump, was now “winnable.”

The only problem with that? Some of Florida’s abortion rights advocates want the president to stay away. At issue is Amendment 4, a measure on November’s ballot that would enshrine abortion in the state constitution — and will also need Republican and independent votes to pass. 

On this episode of Deep Dive, Anna Hochkammer, the executive director of the Florida Women’s Freedom Coalition and one of the architects of Florida’s abortion ballot initiative, joins host and Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza to discuss the delicate politics of building a bipartisan coalition around abortion rights in a red state like Florida.

Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.
Anna Hochkammer is the executive director of the Florida Women's Freedom Coalition. 
Kara Tabor is a producer for POLITICO audio. 
Alex Keeney is a senior producer for POLITICO audio.

A year ago today, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested in Russia and charged with espionage, an allegation he and the Journal said was absurd. The State Department declared that Gershkovich was “wrongfully detained,” an official status that commits the Biden administration to work for his release.

Journal publisher Almar Latour has played a key role in the legal and diplomatic effort to free Gershkovich. On this episode of Playbook Deep Dive, host and Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza talks with Latour to learn the inside story of this effort. 

They discuss: how the shadow of basketball star Brittney Griner’s detainment in Russia is influencing talks to bring Evan home; why a Russian hitman serving a life sentence in Germany may be the key to unlocking a deal with Putin; and how the 2024 election may affect Gershkovich’s fate. 

Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.
Almar Latour is CEO of Dow Jones and publisher of The Wall Street Journal.
Kara Tabor is a producer for POLITICO audio. 
Alex Keeney is a senior producer for POLITICO audio.

The politics of the Israel-Hamas war have become one of the most divisive issues in the Democratic Party. Mark Mellman, the president of Democratic Majority for Israel – and a longtime pollster – joins host and Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza to get into the weeds on the new politics of Israel within the Democratic Party. 

Other subjects covered include the polling data behind Biden’s age, Trump’s hold on the GOP, double doubters, abortion, the fate of Nikki Haley voters, and whether you should bother paying attention to polls in the first place. 

Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.
Mark Mellman is the president of Democratic Majority for Israel.
Kara Tabor is a producer for POLITICO audio. 
Alex Keeney is a senior producer for POLITICO audio.

TikTok, abortion, and IVF: three of the biggest issues in American politics right now and Kellyanne Conway is in the middle of all of them.  

Conway has been advising Donald Trump and Mike Pence for years and lately she’s best known for urging the GOP to leave TikTok alone and moderate the party’s message on reproductive rights.

On this episode of Deep Dive, host and Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza has a spirited conversation with Conway at POLITICO’s Health Care Summit, where they recorded Deep Dive’s first-ever live show.

Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.
Kellyanne Conway is a GOP strategist and former Trump adviser. 
Kara Tabor is a producer for POLITICO audio. 
Alex Keeney is a senior producer for POLITICO audio.

First ladies are among the most powerful advisers in any White House and Jill Biden is no exception. On this episode of Deep Dive, host and Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza is joined by NYT White House correspondent Katie Rogers, who recently published  “American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden,” an authoritative account of how this century’s first ladies have influenced the nation. 

Ryan and Katie discuss Jill Biden and Melania Trump’s roles in staffing, campaigning, and policy decisions; sensitive items from their times in the White House, such as Melania and Donald’s prenup; and whether or not Jill Biden has ever forgiven Kamala Harris for what she said about Joe in 2020. Additionally, Katie opened up about the time her editors at the New York Times sent her to Arkansas and forced her to report a story about the Bidens that she didn’t want to cover — and how it ended up forcing Jill and Joe to confront an uncomfortable truth about their family.

Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.
Katie Rogers is a White House correspondent for The New York Times. 
Kara Tabor is a producer for POLITICO audio. 
Alex Keeney is a senior producer for POLITICO audio.

Carlos Lozada is a columnist for The New York Times, and before that, the longtime nonfiction book critic for The Washington Post. 

In 2019, Lozada won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism for a series of pieces that judges described as “trenchant and searching reviews and essays that joined warm emotion and careful analysis in examining a broad range of books addressing government and the American experience.”

Well, he's now collected nearly a decade of such reviews in what he calls “The Washington Book: How to Read Politics and Politicians,” which was released this week. 

“If the art of politics can be to subtract meaning from language to produce more and more words that say less and less,” he writes, “then it is my purpose as a journalist to try to find that meaning and put it back.”

He reads a lot of books by politicians. As he likes to say, he reads all those books so that you don't have to. 

But he's found a way to use those books to say something interesting about those same politicians. 

So what does Carlos's close reading of the likes of Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis and many others reveal about our politics in 2024?

It turns out quite a lot. On this week’s episode of Deep Dive, host and Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza sits down with Carlos in POLITICO's offices to find out more.

Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.
Carlos Lozada is an opinion columnist and co-host of the weekly “Matter of Opinion” podcast for The New York Times. 
Kara Tabor is a producer for POLITICO audio. 
Alex Keeney is a senior producer for POLITICO audio.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) has a way of being in the middle of things, whether it’s standing up to Trump after Jan. 6 when many in her party kept quiet, helping overthrow House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, or warning Republicans about how they were wrong when it comes to the politics of abortion. 

But some of that drama is catching up with Mace back home in South Carolina, which on Saturday will be the center of the political world as voters head to the polls in the state’s presidential primary. Mace is now back in Trump’s corner and facing a primary which features not one but two candidates at least partly motivated by revenge: a candidate backed by McCarthy and Mace’s own former chief of staff.

On this episode of Deep Dive, host and Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza talks to Rep. Mace about her on-again, off-again history with Trump; the revenge plots playing out in her primary; her prediction about Trump’s margin of victory on Saturday; and the backstory to that time she wore a giant scarlet “A” on the House floor.

Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.
Nancy Mace is the representative for South Carolina's 1st district. 
Kara Tabor is a producer for POLITICO audio. 
Alex Keeney is a senior producer for POLITICO audio.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, joins host and Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza to discuss everything you might want to know about Russian space weapons, Section 702 reforms, and the behind-the-scenes action at the Intelligence Committee during a week of extraordinary volatility. 

Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.
Jim Himes is the representative for Connecticut's 4th district. 
Kara Tabor is a producer for POLITICO audio. 
Alex Keeney is a senior producer for POLITICO audio.