Good Wednesday morning, I'm Anna Palmer and welcome to your Politico Playbook Audio Briefing,

sponsored by the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates. And I'm Jake Sherman. Before we get to the

political earthquake in Alabama, the AP has breaking news out of Istanbul. Palestinian President

Mahmoud Abbas says Palestinians will not accept any role for the U.S. in the Middle East peace

process from now on.

That is bad news for Jared Kushner, who has spent months trying to forge a peace deal.

Back stateside, the banner headline in the Montgomery advertiser is Senator Jones D,

noting that Doug Jones, the Democrat, won Alabama's open Senate seat.

Gabe de Benedetti and Alex Eisenstadt in Birmingham break it down like this.

A Democrat has been elected to the Senate from Alabama for the first time in a quarter century,

and the political earthquake has just begun. Here's what Doug Jones's victory means. Welcome to the

flimsy majority. Governing in Washington has now become a coin flip. Republicans have a 51-49 majority,

and it isn't much of a majority at all. This doesn't have much of an impact at the moment,

because Luther Strange will remain in the Senate until the end of the year. Tax reform is likely safe,

as the Senate plans a Monday vote and a House vote on Tuesday.

But anything else the president wants to do legislatively is going to face stiff headwinds.

Trump can only lose one vote on anything, and he successfully beat up on key members, like

Senators John McCain of Arizona and Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee.

So his margin for error is completely non-existent.

Probably dead on arrival?

Any sort of overhaul of entitlements.

A better bet?

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