April 27, 2022: Fauci pulls out of WHCD. Is Biden next?

Late Tuesday night, CNN’s Oliver Darcy and Kaitlan Collins scooped that Anthony Fauci is dropping out of this weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner over concerns about Covid-19. The question on our minds now: Will President Joe Biden go forward with his own plans to attend the dinner — disagreeing with his chief medical adviser in the process? And, embattled House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy will face his rank and file in a GOP Conference meeting this morning. It’s their first time gathering since a slew of book excerpts and audio recordings landed McCarthy in hot water with MAGA world over what he said in private about both Donald Trump and Trump’s congressional allies in the days following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The meeting comes just after the release of one of the most damaging clips yet: On Tuesday, NYT’s Alex Burns and Jonathan Martin published another explosive piece of audio in which McCarthy (1) said he wished Twitter would ban some of his own members from the platform, and (2) expressed concerns that his rank and file could incite more violence in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack — yet chose to do nothing about it. Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.