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The White House on Friday evening clarified an earlier statement by press secretary Jen Psaki suggesting that President Joe Biden had opted against shielding any of Donald Trump’s records from the committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Following Psaki’s comments at a briefing earlier in the day, the White House said it intends to review each request by the former president to prevent the disclosure of such records on a “case-by-case” basis. Psaki intended to refer to a decision weeks earlier by the Justice Department not to invoke privilege to block officials from providing documents and testimony to the committee.

During Friday’s White House press briefing, Psaki told reporters that members of the Trump administration haven’t reached out to suggest protecting any of the records and that they don’t have regular communication with the former president or his team.

“I would say that we take this matter incredibly seriously. The president already concluded that it would not be appropriate to assert executive privilege,” Psaki said. “And so, we will respond promptly to these questions as they arise. And certainly, as they come up from Congress, and certainly we have been working closely with congressional committees and others as they work to get to the bottom of what happened on Jan. 6.”

The White House has been considering releasing the information to Congress about what Trump and his aides were doing during the Jan. 6 attacks, according to the Washington Post, which first reported Biden’s thinking Thursday night. Trump has said he will cite “executive privilege” to block the committee’s requests, seeking protection from a legal theory that has allowed past presidents and their aides to avoid or delay congressional oversight for decades.

But Biden on Thursday was already leaning toward releasing the material for use, given the weight of Jan. 6 and what it meant for American democracy, according to The Post.

The House panel, which is examining whether the White House or Trump allies tried to delay the certification of the presidential election, sent a letter to the National Archives on Aug. 25, requesting any documents and communications within the White House on Jan. 6 that relate to the insurrection. The National Archives has identified hundreds of pages of relevant documents, which will be sent to Biden and Trump lawyers, as required by statute.

Once the documents are delivered, Trump has 30 days to approve or deny the release, according to the statute. If Trump decides to object, Biden can still turn the material over, since his White House has the final say on the matter.

Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.

President Joe Biden can’t afford Terry McAuliffe to lose the governor’s race in Virginia — and the White House knows it.

It’s a scenario the president and his aides and close allies increasingly view as a real possibility, given tightening poll numbers in the race and signs of Democratic apathy. The White House, Democratic National Committee and outside partners are closely coordinating their efforts and speaking almost daily, according to three people familiar with the dynamic. Just over a month before Election Day, they are planning to ramp up activity and engagement — in addition to the $5 million the DNC has already budgeted for Virginia, one of the people said.

They know what’s at stake. A loss to Republican Glenn Youngkin in the off-cycle governor’s race could set off a domino effect, with Democrats panicking and thinking it’s 2009 all over again — the year they last lost the state’s gubernatorial race, followed by a wipeout in Congress. Democrats fear the party will lose faith in the idea that Biden’s agenda will help boost their electoral prospects; that they’ll fret about his broader handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, and even question the embrace of vaccine mandates as an electoral cudgel after it found favor with a wide swath of Americans.

“There should be concern, it’s a close race. If Terry loses that’s going to scare a lot of Democrats on the Hill. It’s going to make people worry about the midterms and it’s going to make it harder to pass the president’s agenda,” said Josh Schwerin, a Democratic strategist who has worked as a McAuliffe political adviser and former press secretary. “People are going to get skittish if we lose this.”

“It would be the wrong reaction,” Schwerin added, “but it would be the reaction.”

A source familiar with the White House’s thinking said officials always anticipated a close race in Virginia, noting that Biden himself suggested so when he stumped for McAuliffe in late July. Among their concerns is the number of undecided voters in the contest, said another source familiar with conversations between White House aides and national Democratic Party leadership. Virginia has trended Democratic in recent years, with Biden winning the state by 10 points, but if voters remain on the fence as the election approaches, it gives Youngkin the type of opening he would need.

“Of course I believe the White House is concerned,” said Chris Korge, national finance chair at the DNC who is close with McAuliffe. “Knowing Terry the way I do, this guy is tireless, he never stops, he’ll pull it out. But it’s going to require him running a near perfect campaign.”

Fear within the administration is real. Specifically, a third person expressed concerns about complacency among Democratic voters setting in, and pledged that much of their work over the final 35 days will be on ensuring those restive voters turn in their ballots.

“If Democrats, if the McAuliffe campaign, if the coordinated campaign run a strong [get out the vote] effort, which I believe that they will, I think that they’re going to be in a great spot,” the person told POLITICO. “But people have to show up. They’ve got to show up and vote.”

McAuliffe, whose second and final debate with Youngkin is Tuesday evening, isn’t shying away from the warnings. Recently, he’s sat for interviews on cable TV to lay out the stakes for Democrats in Virginia and beyond.

Operatives in the state compared the early alarm bells to those rung in California this summer after polls showed Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom only narrowly turning back a recall attempt. Newsom successfully branded the effort a GOP-led recall, tagged his opponents as mini-Donald Trumps, and mobilized Democrats before turning out his voters en masse.

But Virginia is a far more closely divided state and unlike in California, not every voter is being sent a mail-in ballot. Korge and others said they’d breathe easier if the Biden administration and lawmakers showed progress — and ultimately passed — the president’s major legislative proposals: infrastructure and a party-line social spending bill.

“Honestly, if they pass infrastructure and reconciliation, my comfort level of Terry winning goes up by a 1,000,” he said.

Schwerin stressed that even though Democrats will likely be spooked into thinking there are wider implications for Biden’s agenda if McAuliffe loses, it likely would be due to other dynamics, including a different electorate in off-year elections and the absence of a motivating anti-Trump sentiment. “I think McAuliffe is running a good campaign and he’s a good candidate,” he said. “It’s the climate.”

While McAuliffe has worked to yoke Youngkin to Trump — contending that the state’s progress on Covid and the economy will go to shambles under Republican leadership — Youngkin has largely resisted invitations to nationalize the race. Still, Republicans see more opportunities to leverage Biden’s shortcomings to drive turnout.

The messy and ultimately fatal U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, rising prices for goods and groceries driven by inflation and another wave of migrants to the southern U.S. border have the GOP bullish about Youngkin’s prospects.

“Republicans are angry and motivated, and independents are acting more like Republicans today than any time in the last year,” said Phil Cox, the former campaign manager for Republican Bob McDonnell’s Virginia gubernatorial campaign, citing a recent public survey showing that independent voters supported Youngkin over McAuliffe by six points. “I think we’ve got the best chance in more than a decade.”

Chris Saxman, a conservative who is executive director of the nonpartisan business group Virginia FREE, went as far as suggesting that Youngkin “could be a unicorn candidate” for the GOP.

“He’s new, he’s completely outside politics. He’s never run for office before,” Saxman said. “So, he’s coming in this [with his] eyes wide open on what’s going on in Virginia and figuring out what needs to change.”

Several public surveys of voters have been within the margin of error, though a Monmouth University Poll published Monday showed McAuliffe holding onto a five-point advantage over Younkin with registered voters, with 48 percent of those surveyed supporting the Democrat and 43 percent backing the Republican newcomer.

Those numbers were virtually unchanged from where the two candidates stood in Monmouth’s August poll. While Biden’s approval numbers have lagged in the state, largely due to the resurgence of Covid-19, those queried put their faith behind McAuliffe, who led Youngkin 41 percent to 28 percent on the question of who they would trust more on handling the pandemic.

The people close to the White House said they’ve come to view Youngkin as boxed in with Trump on the virus, election security and the Jan. 6 insurrection, which they contend could resonate more widely with voters given Northern Virginia’s proximity to the Capitol.

At times, they note, Youngkin has equivocated or shifted his answers so as not to offend the base of the party. In a recent interview with Axios, he would not say whether he would have voted to certify the 2020 election on Jan. 6 were he a member of Congress. Youngkin later said he would have voted to do so.

Democrats also are encouraged by what they see as his inability to settle on a closing message.

“For a Republican to win, their base has to be at maximum intensity and our base has to be at minimal intensity,” said former Rep. Tom Perriello, who ran and lost in a Democratic primary for Virginia governor.

Perriello said he’s cautiously optimistic in Democrats’ turnout effort and the partnership of the campaign and allies. He also notes that this is the first gubernatorial election with extensive in-person early voting and mail voting. Recent polling shows that there is still a divide between parties on how people plan to vote: Most Republicans still plan to vote on Election Day and a majority of Democrats said they plan to vote before Nov 2.

“But that doesn’t mean I am not terrified,” Perriello allowed. “Cause the stakes for the state and the country are huge.”

The White House on Tuesday sought to minimize the impact of congressional testimony from top military officials that contradicted President Joe Biden’s past assertions that he was not urged to keep thousands of troops in Afghanistan.

“I think it’s important for the American people to know that these conversations don’t happen in black and white, like you’re in the middle of a movie,” press secretary Jen Psaki said during the daily press briefing.

Gen. Frank McKenzie, who commands U.S. Central Command, told members of the Senate Armed Services committee earlier Tuesday that he recommended maintaining a force of roughly 2,500 troops in Afghanistan earlier this year.

McKenzie also acknowledged discussing with Biden a similar recommendation to leave a few thousand troops on the ground from Gen. Scott Miller, the commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan until July. Miller detailed that recommendation to Congress in closed testimony last week.

“I was present when that discussion occurred, and I am confident that the president heard all the recommendations and listened to them very thoughtfully,” McKenzie testified Tuesday.

Just prior to the briefing, Psaki pointed to part of Biden’s mid-August interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in which the president acknowledged that military advisers were “split” on whether to leave a residual force in Afghanistan rather than having the U.S. completely withdraw.

“There was a range of viewpoints, as was evidenced by their testimony today, that were presented to the president, that were presented to his national security team, as would be expected,” Psaki told reporters Tuesday.

However, also during the interview Psaki cited, Stephanopoulos pressed Biden directly on the matter: “So no one told — your military advisers did not tell you, ‘No, we should just keep 2,500 troops. It’s been a stable situation for the last several years. We can do that. We can continue to do that’?”

Biden replied: “No. No one said that to me that I can recall.”

Nevertheless, the Biden administration has held firm in its belief that pulling out of Afghanistan was the correct decision, even amid withering criticisms from both sides of the aisle over the chaos that unfolded during the operation, a posture that Psaki reiterated from the podium Tuesday.

“He did not think it was in the interest of the American people, or the interest of our troops,” to keep forces in Afghanistan, she said.

She also downplayed the divergence between the testimony of military leaders and the White House on the withdrawal strategy, saying that Biden was not looking for “a bunch of yes men and women.”

“Ultimately, regardless of the advice, it’s his decision,” Psaki said.

Though he is beset by turmoil overseas, confronting chaos at the border and struggling to contain a deadly pandemic back home, the president’s main challenge this week comes from his own party.

With his economic and domestic policy agenda on the line, President Joe Biden needs a big win from his fellow Democrats, whose early unity around his presidency has been strained as summer turns to fall. Biden’s now trying to coax them back together — and avert an electoral disaster in 2022.

From Camp David, he worked the phones with lawmakers over the weekend, urging them to support the multitrillion spending package party leaders are looking to pass this month. Senior adviser Steve Ricchetti, Biden top economic adviser Brian Deese, another economic adviser, David Kamin and the White House’s legislative affairs team led by Louisa Terrell lobbied lawmakers too, visiting the Hill, calling members and holding Zoom sessions with them.

Allies are spending another $4 million in ads starting this week urging unity around two massive spending plans, according to numbers made available to POLITICO by Climate Power & the League of Conservation Voters. And Build Back Together, an outside group closely aligned with the White House, is pushing out messaging to local media outlets, which it views as the most trusted news, asking Democrats to convey that Biden’s economic plans are “popular, popular, popular,” according to the group’s talking points, the toplines of which stress middle class tax cuts, jobs and making the wealthiest Americans and corporations pay more.

Collectively, it is a throw-everything-at-the-wall attempt to push through a $3.5 trillion Democrat-only social and climate spending plan along with a bipartisan infrastructure package with a $550 billion price tag. And it illustrates the sense of desperation that has taken over the party as those agenda items seem painfully close to failing in Congress.

The impact on Democrats if they come up short: “Disastrous,” said John Podesta, a veteran Democrat and former counselor to Barack Obama.

“You need all three of those things” to have any hope of keeping their majorities in the 2022 midterms, Podesta said, referring to the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion Covid relief package that passed in the spring, as well as the two pending plans. “If you pull out the fact that when Democrats were in control they couldn’t do anything for you, then drawing attention to how wacky the Republicans have become doesn’t mean a lot.”

Inside the White House, the tension heading into this week is palpable, aides and allies said.

The president’s approval numbers have been stuck in the mid-40s for weeks. Each attempt at recalibration on its pandemic response — the main force driving down his numbers — has been overshadowed by other world events, from the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan to the troubling scenes of Haitian migrants gathering at the southern border.

Hungry for progress on the domestic front, the White House is now in a compromising state of mind. The president has made it clear he is willing to accept less than the $3.5 trillion that has been the sticker price for his Build Back Better plan, even as his aides publicly say that the cost will ultimately be nothing since it will all be paid for.

Inside the White House, the goal increasingly is to simply get the package over the goal line.

“They need a win,” said Amanda Loveday, senior adviser with Unite the Country, a pro-Biden super PAC, pointing to Afghanistan, the economy and turmoil at the U.S. border on top of the pandemic. “They’re all connected. If you’re able to get more Americans vaccinated, you’re able to see the economy continue to grow. All of it is an intersecting web, the nucleus is a better America for the people of this country.”

Where the White House finds optimism is in the experience of its staff. A person familiar with the White House’s thinking noted that those in charge of ultimately cutting the deals, like Ricchetti, have been in tough legislative battles in past administrations and even earlier this year.

“They understand that until the vote has been cast, they should be worried,” the person said. “That was the case with the rescue plan, that was the case with the bipartisan infrastructure deal coming together, that was the case with the budget resolutions and that is going to be the case with both of these bills. That until the votes have actually been cast, they’ll be working as hard as they can to make sure they do pass.”

But few legislative vehicles are as complicated to pass as the current package, which relies on progressives and moderates in the party to find commonality on massive domestic spending and taxation policy while trusting each other’s motivations. Democratic allies of the White House said this past week that they feared the president’s team had been caught off guard by the stalemate between the two sides of the party and was playing a massive game of catch up with House votes slated on both the infrastructure component and reconciliation bill this week.

In anticipation of those votes, new ads funded by Climate Power and the League of Conservation Voters — two of the most aggressive champions of the climate components of the reconciliation bill — will go live on TV and digitally this week. The new spending is in addition to $9 million in ads the groups have already been aired in key districts. Rep. Kathleen Rice’s (D-N.Y.) New York district and Rep. Stephanie Murphy’s (D-Fla.) Florida district are among those targeted with ads underscoring the need to tackle climate change.

A Tuesday news conference held by Climate Power and League of Conservation Voters will also amplify messaging that ties climate change to the economic packages. Reps. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.), Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Susie Lee (D-Nev.), Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), and Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) are set to join the groups.

Last week, Podesta sent a memo to every Democratic congressional office warning the party could lose its majority if lawmakers didn’t coalesce around a bigger spending package. He also pushed for the need to act on the climate while underscoring the political realities that would keep various Democratic factions from getting what they wanted. It was a major turn for Podesta, who earlier this year had urged the White House to not hold out for Republicans on an infrastructure package.

Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist who regularly helps run focus groups that look at issues facing the White House, downplayed Biden’s dropping polling numbers as a typical consequence of the realities of governing.

“Anyone who has thought that initial polling numbers at the start of the administration would hold for four years doesn’t understand the partisan climate in which we live,” he said.

But Biden’s numbers — with a Gallup poll last week putting him at just 43 percent approval — remain a concern both in the White House and among Democrats facing tough midterms next year. Donald Trump’s Gallup approval was in the upper 30s at this time in 2017 and Republicans took a pummeling in the midterms the following year.

Still, Ferguson said in the samplings he’s seen, Americans are pointing more and more to “a faction of the minority” they blame for holding back the country’s progress on Covid. “The biggest imperative going forward,” he said, “is to now show he is successfully solving these problems and at the same time when they can’t be solved, making clear who’s to blame.”

Sam Stein contributed to this report.

Democrats are hinting they’re willing to drop the debt ceiling from their government funding package this week in order to avoid a government shutdown, a sign that their slim majorities are eager to avoid a shuttered federal government on their watch.

Senate Republicans sank Democrats’ plans to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling together on Monday evening, sending Democratic leaders scrambling to avoid a government shutdown that would kick in Friday morning. They have several options, Democrats said in the aftermath, but a government shutdown is not one.

The GOP rejected a proposal to fund the government into December and lift the debt ceiling past next year’s midterms, a vote that needed the support of 10 Republicans to advance over a GOP filibuster. But only a handful of GOP senators even considered it, and the bill appeared doomed for days. The bill failed, 48-50, and no Republicans supported it.

But Democrats are adamant that despite the GOP position, they will not allow a shutdown even though it certainly means yanking the debt ceiling from their spending bill. The debt ceiling deadline is several weeks away, and the more immediate deadline is on funding the government past Thursday.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said that with control of Congress and the White House, “we’re not going to let the government shut down and we’re not going to default.” And Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), chair of the House’s spending panel, said Monday night that Democrats will devise another funding patch this week without language to lift the debt limit.

“I’m sure there are very, very smart, clever people to figure out how you deal with the debt,” DeLauro said. “Our first order of business is to keep the government open, which we are going to do.”

The quick movement away from a shutdown fight demonstrates Democrats’ distaste for injecting more drama into their attempts to execute President Joe Biden’s agenda. But they haven’t decided whether to simply kick the can on the debt fight with Republicans to October or separate it from the spending bill altogether. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has kept his endgame closely-held over the past few days, instead seeking to thrash the GOP as “the party of default,” as he declared on Monday.

Democrats will have to quickly conjure up a short-term spending bill that can win bipartisan support, or otherwise face an imminent shutdown right as they try and iron out complicated intraparty divisions over Biden’s jobs and families plan. A shutdown is the last thing Democrats’ thin majorities need, even if Republicans’ opposition to lifting the debt ceiling is the primary reason for the prospect of both a funding lapse and a potential default in the coming weeks.

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said “there’s no earthly reason we can’t get this done.” And Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who represents thousands of government workers, said for his state “nothing would be worse than a shutdown.”

“We shouldn’t even string it out until Thursday because of the enormous costs that are incurred in the pre-shutdown procedures. But I think we’re there. How we get through the debt ceiling? Still TBD,” Warner said .

DeLauro’s revamped funding bill is expected to keep cash flowing to government agencies through Dec. 3, the chair said — the same span of time as the proposal the Senate rejected Monday. Since the Treasury Department is expected to exhaust its borrowing ability well before that date, Democrats would be unhitching the shutdown threat from the debt crisis, relinquishing key leverage as they try to shame Republicans into voting to prevent a default.

“We’re going to come back with another proposal in which we can fund the government,” DeLauro said. “Funding the government — keeping the government open — is a critical piece. And we’ll do whatever that takes to be able to get that done.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s staff told House Democratic chiefs of staff on Monday they are confident they will be able to keep the government funded this week, according to Democratic sources. But first, Democrats want to try and make clear that Republicans would be solely responsible for a debt debacle and a government shutdown. Schumer said he may call the House’s doomed bill up for another vote this week.

Democrats have several options to move forward to avoid a shutdown. They can pass a short-term two- or three-week stopgap spending bill and try and line up the projecting late October date for potential default. Republicans say this option will not move them.

Or, as DeLauro noted, they can simply remove the debt limit provision and put forward legislation to fund the government for two months, which is the easiest path forward. That would also probably require Democrats to begin laying the groundwork to raise the debt ceiling on their own.

The ill-fated Monday vote on a spending proposal also includes funding for disaster relief in hurricane-stricken states like Louisiana and assistance for Afghan refugees. House Democrats dropped $1 billion for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system from their bill earlier this month, but a contingent of Senate Democrats want to add it back. Some House leadership aides hope Schumer keeps out Iron Dome missile defense funding to keep progressives happy.

Senate Republicans have signaled for months that they will oppose suspending or raising the debt ceiling, arguing that Democrats have the means to do so on their own if they want to pass their $3.5 trillion social spending plan. Republicans say the Democrats should drop the debt ceiling from the measure to keep government doors open, add the Iron Dome funding and raise the debt ceiling via the party-line budget reconciliation maneuver.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that Republicans would easily help approve a spending bill that does not touch the debt limit to avoid a shutdown, but was again adamant his party would block any debt limit increase. He offered his counterproposal before the failed vote on Monday evening but was denied by Democrats.

“We should act immediately on the proposal for a CR to prevent a government shutdown later this week, along with urgent disaster assistance for states hit hard by the hurricanes, aid for resettling Afghan allies, and replenishing the Iron Dome money for Israel. That package could be passed today,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

Democrats counter that much of the new debt was incurred under the Trump administration and that doing so along party lines would set a problematic precedent. Democrats also highlight that they raised the debt ceiling three times when former President Donald Trump was in power and the vast majority of debt ceiling increases have been bipartisan.

In the modern Congress, it’s common to be days — or even hours — away from a government shutdown without a clear plan for averting a funding lapse. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the chamber’s top Republican appropriator, projected confidence that Senate leaders will eventually find ways to head off both fiscal cliffs before turmoil ensues.

“At the end of the day — I don’t know when that’s going to be now — that we’ll pass a [continuing resolution], and we’ll work out the debt limit,” said Shelby, who has served in Congress for more than 40 years. “This is nothing new here.”

Heather Caygle and Caitlin Emma contributed to this report.