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LATEST IN GAZA — “Hamas Releases First Group of Hostages in Gaza Cease-Fire Deal With Israel,” by WSJ’s Rory Jones and Summer Said: “The exchange of hostages and prisoners is the first stage of a wider deal that included a cessation of fighting starting at 7 a.m. local time Friday. Along with 13 Israelis, Hamas also released 12 Thais, who were a surprise last-minute addition and whose freedom wasn’t part of the broader agreement.”

“Hamas handed over the hostages to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza, which delivered them to the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, where the Israeli military will identify them and provide an initial medical examination. … They will then travel to Israeli hospitals to meet family members. Up to 39 Palestinians are expected to be freed from a prison in northern Israel thereafter.”

Related reads: “Past Israel-Hamas Cease-Fires Have Proved Fragile,” by NYT’s Victoria Kim … “The five ‘extremely excruciating’ weeks of talks that led to the Hamas hostage deal,” by NBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin, Anna Schecter and Corky Siemaszko

CHARLES PETERS, 1926-2023 — Charlie Peters, who died on Thanksgiving age 96, was a Washington legend. He founded The Washington Monthly in 1969 and ran it until 2001.

Even if you didn’t know Peters, you heard a lot about him. He was this lovable rascal from West Virginia who adored Negronis (decades before they were cool again). He could be a tad challenging to work for and was famous for his “rain dances” — editing suggestions delivered with love, though at a high volume.

Modeling his publication on the Peace Corps, Peters took 20-something aspiring journalists and put them through a two-year boot camp running a small national magazine read by the Washington elite. The pay was paltry and not everyone survived, but those who did were prepared to step into jobs in the upper echelons of political journalism.

Alumni of the Peters program filled the ranks of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Republic, the Atlantic, the (old) Newsweek and Time, and they spread out from there. This small band of writers and editors trained by Peters had a profound and disproportionate influence on American media.

We reached out to some of the many people Peters mentored over the years and they shared some heartwarming, hilarious and sage remembrances that we hope — even if you’ve never heard of Peters — offer you some wisdom this holiday weekend.

JON MEACHAM: “Charlie saw through to the essence of things. If a draft of a piece was unnuanced and strident — self-righteousness being the besetting sin of the young, and almost all of Charlie’s editors were young — he would call from his lair in Northwest Washington and say something like: ‘It might not be the worst thing in the history of literature for you to consider that not everyone is a total SOB. A partial SOB, maybe. So you might show the awareness of that.’ Show the awareness: Lord, how often we heard those words. And how much I will miss them. And when he turned that X-ray vision on you, he could offer unsettling truths that were, nonetheless, truths.”

JAMES FALLOWS: “Of the million things Charlie taught us, not all of them intentional, one that stands out is an ‘empty gas tank’ mindset when writing a book or article. He didn’t use that term, but the idea was that you should use up everything you had — scoops, new concepts, reporting details, the best writing you could manage — on the article you were doing now, rather than saving up anything ‘for later.’ It’s like wanting to roll across the finish line with the last drop of gas. If you saved things for later, who knows when ‘later’ might come.”

GREGG EASTERBROOK: “Charlie once reduced me to tears, an incident much discussed among the alumni. This taught me a lesson I have never forgotten: really, really care about writing.”

JOSHUA GREEN: “One thing he instilled in his charges that I’m especially grateful for — and that’s more necessary than ever today — is the necessity of shedding lazy partisan thinking and taking on the best arguments of the other side, whether those arguments were coming from Republicans or Democrats. Charlie called this ‘playing Notre Dame’ (Notre Dame being, at that time, an unrivaled football powerhouse). … His voice is still the one in my head every time I sit down to write something, which I assume is true for generations of Monthly editors.”

MICHELLE COTTLE: “For all the stories about his temper, he liked that my response to his bad moods was often to burst out laughing. I remember once, when something went wrong with a direct mail campaign, he was flipping out at the office. At some point, I started yelling back, ‘You are NOT going to have a heart attack on me today!’ That cracked him up. And once you survived the two years, of course, he would do anything in the world for you.”

JOE NOCERA: “The thing Charlie taught that has stayed with me always is that it should never matter whether something you’ve written is embraced by ‘the other side.’ What matters is whether you’ve told the truth, no matter whose ox it gores. As I was writing ‘The Big Fail’ about America’s Covid response, it is a teaching I reflected on almost every day.”

STEVEN WALDMAN: “Charlie challenged reporting and writing that seemed about validating our own priors or earning validation from our own crowd. My favorite of his aphorisms was to be willing to ‘say good things about the bad guys, and bad things about the good guys.’ It was a push toward raw intellectual honesty.”

CHRISTINA LARSON: “What I learned from Charlie Peters — and Paul Glastris, who carried on his legacy — is that the most important criticism is often the hardest. It wasn’t always easy to smile immediately after being told why you needed to rewrite your entire 5,000-word story. But learning to accept thoughtful criticism — careful, wise and sometimes humorous feedback — early in my career proved enormously helpful.”

JONATHAN ALTER: “I remember in the early ‘80s he assigned an article on rising tuition costs. When the writer mentioned his story on why college costs so much, Charlie got angry: ‘No, that’s NOT the story! The story is on why college SHOULDN’T cost so much.’ This completely changed the emphasis from the role of inflation and the need to pay professors better to an explanation of useless deans and the snob appeal of high-cost colleges — a completely different and of course much better story.”

PHIL KEISLING: “Charlie was certainly strongly opinionated — but he could change his mind! About one and a half into my editorship, he insisted I change my byline to my full name and middle initial lest I not be taken seriously as a journalist and more like a sportswriter. Then when he learned a friend was urging me to return home to Oregon and run for the state legislature — a path he’d taken himself in West Virginia — he was very enthusiastic. ‘But you have to run as Phil Keisling — Phillip sounds too pretentious!’”

TIMOTHY NOAH: “I think what Charlie taught me above all was that the race was not to the swiftest. I was 25 and had gotten on very well by thinking fast and finishing my bosses’ sentences for them. … It got me absolutely nowhere with Charlie. He could not be railroaded into a decision. He applied the same deliberation to editing my pieces, pointing out areas where I’d glossed over in my haste or where my reporting lacked heft. He was the antithesis of the Washington TV booker who urges you to oversimplify. For this reason he was terrible on TV — and interestingly — so in the end were most of his disciples, including me.”

JASON DePARLE: “Neither age nor status diminished the ferocity of Charlie’s commitment to what he called ‘the underdog’ (in modern terms, ‘social justice’). Of his many remarkable qualities, that was one I admired most.”

MARKOS KOUNALAKIS: “Charlie taught me that politics can be practical, rational, and efficient if provided the right structural incentives, motivations, and checks. Otherwise, people will do the opposite — avoid risk, play CYA, and invent wild rationalizations for practicing the insane.”

NICHOLAS CONFESSORE: “Even those of us who worked at the Monthly after Charlie semi-retired found ourselves contending with his jukebox of ideas and maxims. Would turning half of all federal employees into patronage hires make agencies more accountable? Would working a stint in government actually make reporters better at covering government? He had an endless supply.”

JAMES BENNET: “There was not just an urgency but a kind of ferocity to Charlie’s honesty, originality and goodness that made him the toughest and finest editor and friend that anyone could hope to have.”

DAVID IGNATIUS: “Charlie Peters was a crusading journalist, for sure, but he was also a mischievous rogue. He dodged creditors for years and thought he’d made a breakthrough when he realized he could lengthen the float on his checks by not signing them. He loved being a confessor and moral counselor for his young acolytes, and his seances would often begin with a statement like: ‘David, I know what your problem is. …’ It was hard to please him, and that was the point.”

WALTER SHAPIRO: “Little attention has been paid in the obits to his favorite book, Five Days in Philadelphia, his recreation of the 1940 Republican convention that nominated internationalist WENDELL WILLKIE instead of isolationist BOB TAFT. Charlie argued persuasively that the GOP’s rejection of isolationism made possible Lend Lease aid to Britain, a peacetime draft and, ultimately, American political unity after Pearl Harbor. Like his life, Charlie’s book was passionate, contrarian — and totally right. God, will I miss him.”

MARGARET CARLSON: “Charlie Peters could see right into people and his masthead showed it. I was working for RALPH NADER and just finishing law school and Charlie thought I should throw three years of torts and contracts away. ‘You’re not a lawyer. You’re a journalist.’ He had a good eye but he also liked to butt in. It was both and he was right. Love to Charlie. I wouldn’t have the life I have without him.”

T.A. FRANK: “Charlie always knew how to express a complicated thought in a simple way, so his adages are numerous and unforgettable. I’ve always loved this one, which comes from a late-in-life interview he gave: ‘Don’t be afraid to make a fool of yourself in the interest of what you believe.’”

PAUL GLASTRIS: “Charlie may have left this Earth, but all of us who worked for him still have his voice inside our heads demanding, in that West Virginia accent, that we do better. You never lose it.”

Obituaries: WaPo … NYT … AP … Washington Monthly

Happy Black Friday. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line and tell us what a great mentor taught you: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.

UGLY STUFF IN DUBLIN — Irish PM LEO VARADKAR this morning denounced anti-immigrant riots that broke out on the streets of Dublin Thursday after several young children were seriously injured in a stabbing incident.

“Each attack brought shame to our society and disgrace to those involved, and incredible pain to those caught up in the violence,” Varadkar said today, per the Irish Times’ Harry McGee. “Turning to the anti-immigrant faction who encouraged the street violence and subsequent rioting and looting last night, he said: ‘Being Irish means more than saluting the tricolour, beating your chest and pointing to where you were born.’”

At the White House

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN and VP KAMALA HARRIS have nothing on their public schedules.

9 THINGS WE’RE WATCHING

1. ANNALS OF INFLUENCE: “Inside the rebirth of a controversial Democratic digital juggernaut,” by Hailey Fuchs and Daniel Lippman: “[R]ather than disappear from the political scene, Mothership [Strategies] has found a lower-profile roster of clients, primarily political action committees not affiliated with politicians. And campaign finance records, interviews, and communications from the firm show that it’s continuing to collect significant fees while deploying the very same aggressive business practices — such as sending fundraising emails with catastrophic, eyebrow-raising language — that gave it pariah status in the first place.”

2. IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID: While Democratic operatives continue to sweat Biden’s recent polling numbers in swing states as he makes his second bid for the White House, their focus should be on voters’ economic concerns, Mileah Kromer writes for POLITICO Mag: “Voters hold these attitudes while the inflation rate has steadily decreased from its peak last summer, unemployment rates remain low with U.S. employers continuing to add jobs and many facets of Biden’s economic plan are popular. Even so, with prices of everyday goods and services stubbornly high, it might be enough to cost Biden his reelection. ”

Related read: “The viral $16 McDonald’s meal that may explain voter anger at Biden,” by WaPo’s Jeff Stein and Taylor Lorenz

3. GRANITE STATE UPDATE: Longshot Democratic candidate DEAN PHILLIPS’ jump into the presidential race may not pose a big threat to the Biden campaign, but it could endanger both NIKKI HALEY’s and CHRIS CHRISTIE’S electoral math in New Hampshire, Lisa Kashinsky reports: “[B]oth Christie and Haley have been rising in recent polls of the first primary state in no small part because of the support they’re earning from independents,” she writes, but “Phillips is already drawing some independent support at the margins.”

Haley’s money momentum: NYT’s Kate Kelly and Rebecca Davis O’Brien have more on big donors’ embrace of Haley as she rises to a (still-distant) second place against DONALD TRUMP in key states: “Haley’s fresh appeal to the moneyed crowd is coming at a critical juncture in the race, when positive buzz and steady cash flow are vital to a candidate’s survival.”

4. HIM, TOO: NYC Mayor ERIC ADAMS was accused of sexual assault in a legal action filed this week in a New York court, The Messenger’s Ben Feuerherd scoops. The plaintiff in the case, an unnamed woman, filed the action Wednesday night that alleges Adams assaulted her in 1993, while both were city employees: “The summons is just three pages and does not reveal any detail about the alleged assault. In a statement, a City Hall spokesperson said the mayor denies the claim and does not know the plaintiff in the case.”

The context: “The Adult Survivors Act went into effect in New York in November 2022 and opened a one-year window for sexual abuse accusers to file suits in state and federal courts about claims that would have been time-barred by the statute of limitations. That window expires Friday.”

Adams speaks: “People know my character and I could just emphatically state this never took place. And it’s just not who I am. I would never do anything to harm someone,” he told reporters, per WNBC-TV. “I don’t recall meeting the person and I’m going to remain steadfast in running the city.”

5. COLD, HARD REALITY: “Democratic cities brace for a nightmare winter housing migrants,” by Shia Kapos, Lisa Kashinsky and Katelyn Cordero: “Northern cities and states that have been overwhelmed by a surge in migrants are now out of room to house them just as the weather turns cold — a potentially life-threatening situation that’s inflaming local political tensions as the Biden administration largely leaves these Democratic strongholds to fend for themselves. … The dual crises of lowering temperatures and a lack of shelter space are forcing some jurisdictions to tighten long-standing policies that previously ensured people without homes would have a place to stay — and in some cases, confront simmering racial divides.”

6. LOOK WHO’S COMING TO DINNER: Trump informed Argentinian President-elect JAVIER MILEI that he plans to travel to the country to meet with him, AP’s Daniel Politi reports: “The office did not give a date for when Trump intends to be in Buenos Aires. The inauguration of Milei, a right-wing populist who has expressed admiration for Trump, is scheduled for Dec. 10. … Milei has often been compared to Trump, whom he praised in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson earlier this year.”

7. LATEST ON RUSSIA AND UKRAINE: Russian and Chinese business executives with government ties have secretly discussed ideas to create an underwater tunnel connecting Russia to Crimea with the goal to create a transportation corridor that would be safe from Ukrainian strikes, WaPo’s Greg Miller and Mary Ilyushina scoop: “The negotiations underscore Russia’s determination to maintain its grip on Crimea, a peninsula that it annexed illegally in 2014, as well as Moscow’s growing dependence on China as a source of global support.”

8. ABORTION IN AMERICA: “Ohio voters just passed abortion protections. Whether they take effect is now up to the courts,” by AP’s Julie Carr Smyth: “The amendment declared an individual’s right to ‘make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions’ and passed with a strong 57% majority. … But the amendment did not repeal any existing Ohio laws, providing an opening for Republican elected officials and anti-abortion groups to renew their efforts to halt, delay or significantly water it down.”

9. WARNING FROM THE LEFT: “Clock ticking on Biden’s chances with progressives and young voters, key groups say,” by CNN’s Camila DeChalus: “DAKOTA HALL — executive director of the Alliance for Youth Action, a national network of local organizations that aims to mobilize young voters — told CNN that Biden is running out of time to demonstrate to these voters … that he will fulfill his 2020 campaign promises even as the president’s efforts to sign more bills into law are likely to be stalled in a divided Congress … Hall and other groups have said that they are giving Biden until the summer to see him heed their call or else they warn that he could lose a significant part of his base.”

SUNDAY SO FAR …

FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) … Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). Panel: Kevin Roberts, Susan Page, Horace Cooper and Marie Harf.

ABC “This Week”: Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Caif.) … Chris Christie. Panel: Donna Brazile, Rick Klein, Sarah Isgur and Susan Glasser.

CNN “State of the Union”: Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) … Chris Christie. Panel: Karen Finney, David Urban, Faiz Shakir and Sarah Chamberlain.

CNN “Inside Politics Sunday”: Panel: Laura Barron-Lopez, Josh Dawsey, Jackie Kucinich and Catherine Lucey.

NBC “Meet the Press”: Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio). Panel: Brendan Buck, Leigh Ann Caldwell and Symone Sanders-Townsend.

CBS “Face the Nation”: Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) … Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) … Cindy McCain … Jerome Adams.

Tim Kaine’s creamed onion dish is surprising folks online.

Voters are losing hope in the American Dream.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Emma Levin, senior adviser at Senate Majority PAC, and Eli Simon-Mishel, director of corporate development at Environmental Resources Management, welcomed Micah Phinn Mishel on Nov. 8. Pic

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas … former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman of the Bipartisan Policy Center (79) … POLITICO’s Shia Kapos, Katie Phillips and Shubham Kadam … Tom LoBianco … Rachel Kriegsman … Ben Burger … Chris Putala of Putala Strategies … former Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Texas) … Frank Ahrens … Nikki Clifton of UPS … Mark Steitz … Brooke Jamison … Gary Beck of America’s Health Insurance Plans … MSNBC’s Rachel Witkin … Jeff Ballabon … Alpex International’s Lee Godown … Patrick Burchette … Lindsey Schulte … Jim Landry … Dave Rapallo … Jeremy Pevner … Sally Susman of Pfizer … Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at Penn … Marlin Fitzwater … Zach Gillis … Krystal Ball … Paul Tagliabue …Kaiser Health News’ Darius Tahir … Meaghan Smith of Gilead Sciences … Sherry Ettleson … Hugh Grindstaff … Jonathan Black … Tyler Goodspeed of the Hoover Institution … Morning Consult’s Sarah Dickson

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