Presented by the American Petroleum Institute.

Hey, good morning. I'm Playbook co-author Rachel Bade. It's Tuesday, June 25th, and here's what's driving the day.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has struck a plea deal with the U.S. government. He is expected to return free to his native Australia after getting credit for

five years he spent in prison in the UK. In return, he's going to be pleading guilty to conspiring

to obtain and disseminate classified information. Should the House Sergeant-at-Arms arrest

Attorney General Merrick Garland? If that question sounds a bit ridiculous, well, you haven't been following the

news in the House over the past 24 hours. Congresswoman Anna Polly and the Luna, a Republican from

Florida, plans to force a vote on the so-called inherent contempt tool, all because Merrick Garland

is refusing to hand over Special Counsel Robert Hurst tapes of the Biden interviews. Now, this is a

centuries old tool that hasn't been used in, well, forever, but yes, technically it does allow the

sergeant at arms to arrest people who ignore subpoenas. But you can expect the effort to die.

With the Rules Committee expecting to tee up a trio of spending bills later today,

the White House yesterday issued veto threats on all three, defense, homeland security, and state

foreign ops. Why? Well, because Republicans are marking up these bills below the agreement

Kevin McCarthy made with the White House last year. If this feels like deja vu to you, well, we don't blame you at all.

McCarthy did the same thing, reneging on his agreement last year and trying to cut spending

even lower, only to return to the original agreement, which is what we expect Speaker

Johnson to do eventually.

It's primary day in Colorado, Utah, and New York.

And as promised in yesterday's playbook, where we fleshed out the dynamics of the previous

two states, we are going to focus this morning on the Empire State and their Democratic

bloodbath in particular.

...