| | | | |  | | By Ryan Lizza, Rachael Bade and Eugene Daniels | Presented by the Brennan Center for Justice | With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine
| | | |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | |  In terms of reach and impact, Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago press conference yesterday was nothing like the CNN debate. | AP | JUST ANNOUNCED — President JOE BIDEN and VP KAMALA HARRIS will appear together Thursday in Maryland to “to discuss the progress they are making to lower costs for the American people.” As we previewed on Wednesday, Biden’s aides are mapping out how he will be deployed on the campaign trail, and Jonathan Lemire and Eli Stokols have more on how he will “embark on a limited campaign schedule for the fall, likely deployed strategically” targeting key states and constituencies. DON’T CALL IT A RESET — DONALD TRUMP’s news conference yesterday was meant to offer him a fresh start after his campaign has struggled to respond to the new Democratic ticket. Going into the event, the question on the minds of many Republicans was posed by the Wall Street Journal editorial board in yesterday’s paper: “Will Donald Trump Blow Another Election?” In a briefing for reporters beforehand, Trump advisers argued that Harris' recent good run was just a “honeymoon” or “suspended reality” and would end “in a few days.” This line of thinking reminds us a little bit of the many times that Biden's advisers told us that Trump’s lead in the polls was just temporary because voters weren’t paying attention and that once the race was joined, the numbers would shift. But we learned with Biden that this doesn’t just happen — the candidate matters. When Biden showed up at the CNN debate, his party realized he was incapable of making the case against Trump. In terms of reach and impact, the Mar-a-Lago news conference was nothing like the debate. (How many people were watching basic cable at 2 p.m. on a Thursday in August during the Olympics?) But Trump’s lack of focus and his inability to mount a coherent case against Harris and TIM WALZ reminded us a little of Biden’s communications breakdown, even if it wasn’t as bad. Again, the WSJ editorial articulated what Republicans have been saying privately, noting before the event that “the problem is the candidate” who “seems to think he’s still leading in the polls against a feeble incumbent” and “doesn’t seem to realize he’s now in a close race that requires discipline and a consistent message to prevail.” That was the bar set for Trump after two weeks when the metrics he cares about — polls, fundraising and crowds — were all trending Harris’ way. Did he clear it? The big news was that Trump agreed to the Sept. 10 ABC News debate (after saying five days ago that his previous commitment to the debate was “terminated”). He also proposed two additional events that Harris quickly brushed off, saying she would consider them after the first debate. But much of the rest of the news conference was either old news, false claims or unfocussed attacks on his opponent. The WaPo called it “meandering.” The Times said Trump’s “remarks were littered with falsehoods.” Here’s a sampling:
- On abortion, Trump said “I don’t think it’s a big factor anymore,” and declined to answer our colleague Natalie Allison’s question about how he would vote in this November’s Florida referendum to restore abortion rights in the state. “When asked if he would direct the Food and Drug Administration to revoke access to abortion pills,” the NYT noted, “he seemed not to understand the question and provided an incoherent answer that did not address it.”
- Trump said he wanted to take away the Federal Reserve’s independence in setting interest rates, because “I think I have a better instinct than, in many cases, people that would be on the Federal Reserve or the chairman.” (The campaign had no comment on this, suggesting it was not a planned rollout of a new policy.)
- In discussing his infamous speech on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump claimed the crowd — which later stormed the Capitol — was bigger than the crowd on hand for Rev. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. (For the record, MLK’s crowd was 25 times larger, per the AP.)
- His case against Tim Walz had a lot of adjectives but was short on details: “He’s going for things that nobody’s ever heard of. Heavy into the transgender world, heavy into lots of different worlds, having to do with safety.” You don’t get the sense he’s really studied the Walz oppo yet.
- We’ll quote the NYT on this one, because we appreciate the understated tone of the reporting here: “He has called the move to replace Mr. Biden with Ms. Harris ‘unconstitutional,’ but when challenged about what section of the U.S. Constitution would prohibit the change in the ticket, he acknowledged that perhaps it was not actually unconstitutional.”
- Trump falsely claimed that the 2021 transfer of power from Trump to Biden was “peaceful.” As the Harris campaign noted, it famously was not.
Trump advisers said at least one strategic point of the event was to raise the issue of Harris not being available to the media. After Trump dinged her for not facing the press, she did actually respond. Harris told reporters, “I want us to get an interview scheduled before the end of the month” (which still, we'll note, is three weeks away). In chewing over the press conference with some Republicans yesterday, one congressional aide seized on a Trump line that he said summed up the problem: “I haven’t recalibrated strategy at all.” ABOUT THAT HELICOPTER STORY — Trump also claimed that he once had a near-death experience on a helicopter with former San Francisco Mayor WILLIE BROWN, and that Brown — who dated Harris for about a year in the 1990s — had told him “terrible things” about Harris on the flight. But it appears that Trump confused Willie Brown with JERRY BROWN, the former governor of California, that there was no real danger and that Brown never said anything to him about Harris. But this story did surface a Trump-Harris connection that we’d never heard about. In debunking the Trump tale yesterday, Willie Brown told the San Francisco Chronicle that Trump once sent his plane to Boston to fly Brown to New York for a meeting with Trump, but Trump wasn’t aboard the plane and the flight was uneventful. In poking around about that story, we ran across an account of the 1994 trip in Dan Morain’s Harris biography, “Kamala’s Way.” Morain backs up Brown’s version but he adds one surprising detail not in the SF Chronicle: Harris was with Brown in Boston at the time, and she traveled with him aboard Trump’s plane to New York. “Trump wanted to discuss a hotel project he had in mind for Los Angeles and sent his jet to Boston to fly Brown and his friends, Harris included, to New York City,” Morain reports. “The jet was gilded, had valuable paintings on its cabin walls, and had notes left for Trump by his then wife, MARLA MAPLES. Brown and Trump had lunch at the Plaza Hotel. The Los Angeles deal never materialized. Trump and Harris likely did not meet.” Happy Friday. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.
| | | | A message from the Brennan Center for Justice: Supreme Court reform is an issue whose time has come. Public trust in the Supreme Court has plunged to the lowest level ever recorded, and term limits for the justices has broad bipartisan support. Congress must take action to establish 18-year term limits and bring regular turnover to the bench. The result? A Court with more legitimacy that better reflects American values. No one should have that much power for life. Learn more about term limits. | | | |  We sat down with longtime Biden adviser Anita Dunn to discuss what really went on behind the scenes in the run-up to the CNN debate. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | THE PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW: ANITA DUNN — Biden’s longtime close adviser left the White House on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we sat down with Dunn for the Playbook Deep Dive podcast and pressed her about what really went on behind the scenes in the run-up to the CNN debate, during the aftermath when Democratic party leaders called for Biden to step aside and in the frantic days when Harris became the newly anointed nominee. You can read an edited transcript here. You can listen to the full conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What follows are some key excerpts:
| 
| On whether they had any doubts about Biden scheduling an early debate: “No we didn't. The president won both debates in 2020. The president went into a pretty hostile chamber for the State of the Union and performed brilliantly. … And his best moments were the ones he ad libbed. He has a history of doing very well in these events, so we felt very comfortable with his ability to do it. We felt that strategically it would help the campaign enormously to jumpstart the ‘choice’ piece of this and give us good momentum.” On Trump’s 2024 team: “The people who are running his campaign this time are very good. … They're much smarter. They’re running a very competent campaign. We saw that early in this process. And so we had a reasonable expectation that they were going to have a fairly competent rollout and a fairly good convention.” On the theory that Biden’s advisers “did this on purpose” to show the public what they’d seen in private: “That's ludicrous. … The idea that we ever would have put him in that situation is just crazy. You know, we have all been through debate preps with Joe Biden. Some people have been through them since the 1987 campaign. … I think all of us have a very good sense of Joe Biden and his strengths. And we felt coming out of the prep that he was fairly well prepared now. He also had a terrible cold that got worse in the course of the week. … I think there was no question that it played a role. He didn't feel well.” On what she learned from dial tests of voters watching the debate: “One of the things that was interesting was that voters didn't particularly like Biden's performance in the first half hour. He wasn't scoring well at all. But it's not as though they walked out. They very much liked a lot of the second half of the debate for Joe Biden. They hated Donald Trump. By the end of this, the first part of the strategy had absolutely worked in that people were like, ‘Oh, I'd forgotten. I really don't like this guy.’ … “It was a bad debate, but it didn't feel catastrophic at all, certainly in terms of voters. … This campaign had been fairly static for a long time, and the debate didn't change that. What did change it was 24 days of unremitting negative, horrible attacks on Joe Biden … from his own party and from the press.” On when she realized that they had lost the fight and Biden would step aside: “That weekend when he was at home. … We had a strategy, and we felt that we really could fight this thing through, until we couldn't. … I think it's been reported publicly that he got on a call with his senior advisers and told us right about the time he was sending it out. But everyone had figured it out by then.” On her reaction to Biden’s decision to end his campaign: “It was rough. And no reflection on the vice president, because I think one of the greatest things about Joe Biden's legacy will be that he made sure that there was a pipeline in which Kamala Harris was going to be the natural person everyone turned to if something happened to him. … But it's a very tough thing to have worked so long towards something and have it end.” DNC COUNTDOWN — The Democratic National Convention is less than two weeks away. Are you headed to Chicago? Join POLITICO for live, in-person conversations with the Democratic Party’s biggest newsmakers. Sign up to get notified when registration opens
| | | | A message from the Brennan Center for Justice:   | | | | | WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY | | On the Hill The Senate and the House are out. What we’re watching … As Minnesota Gov. TIM WALZ faced a second day of questions about his military record yesterday, it was House Democrats, his former peers, who formed the tip of the spear in defending him. On a DNC call yesterday, Daniella Diaz reports for Inside Congress, Rep. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-Mass.), a former Marine officer, compared Walz 24 years of military service with Trump’s Vietnam deferments: “The chasm is wide, and the chasm is revealing, and we are not going to flinch from these attacks.” And last night on CNN, Rep. MIKIE SHERRILL (D-N.J.), an ex-Navy helicopter pilot, called the stolen valor allegations “ridiculous and really, really offensive.” At the White House Biden will receive the President’s Daily Brief in the morning. On the trail Harris and Walz will travel to Arizona and Nevada for rallies. Our colleagues Lisa Kashinsky, Liz Crampton and Brittany Gibson report that some “Sun Belt Democrats fear that Walz tips the ticket into more progressive territory that could be hard to sell to more moderate voters across the suburban and rural South and Southwest.” Trump will be in Bozeman, Montana, for a rally on Montana State University’s campus.
| | | | During unprecedented times, POLITICO Pro Analysis gives you the insights you need to focus your policy strategy. Live briefings, policy trackers, and and people intelligence secures your seat at the table. Learn more. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | 2024 WATCH
| 
VP Kamala Harris snapped back at protesters during Wednesday's rally and said the interruptions would not be tolerated. | Jamie Kelter Davis for POLITICO | THE INHERITANCE — It was a moment at Harris’ Michigan rally that caught fire on social media: As pro-Palestinian protesters shouted during her speech, Harris snapped back and said the interruptions would not be tolerated and only help to elect Trump. But the incident could signal a trouble spot for the campaign. “The persistence of the pro-Palestinian movement suggests it still has the capacity to do damage in swing states like Michigan, which has large populations of Arab American voters in cities like Dearborn and young voters who align with the movement,” Myah Ward, Adam Cancryn, Eugene and Shia Kapos report. “So far, no one from the Harris campaign has reached out to the group to schedule a meeting. And the White House moved quickly to make clear where the vice president stands, saying Thursday that Harris ‘does not support an arms embargo on Israel’ and that she will ensure Israel can continue to defend itself while working to protect civilians in Gaza.” Related read: “With Harris and Walz in, some Democrats still weigh skipping the polls,” by WaPo’s Danielle Paquette in Philadelphia Another key group that Harris will need is the labor vote. And while she has shored up support from the top unions’ top bosses, “work remains to shore up support among millions of card-carrying union members who represent a critical constituency for both parties across the manufacturing-heavy Midwest — and whose political allegiances often don’t mirror those of their leadership,” CNN’s Kayla Tausche and Arlette Saenz write. More top reads:
- Spoiler alert: ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.’s long-shot presidential campaign is “disappearing — both on the trail and in the polls,” NBC’s Katherine Koretski writes, pointing out that his last public event came on July 9. But, but, but: WaPo’s Aaron Blake notes that RFK’s campaign appears to be hurting Trump. In recent “quality polls,” she leads “by an average of 1.5 points in those head-to-head matchups, and 3.3 points in the crowded fields.” (And he got JOE ROGAN’s endorsement yesterday.)
- Georgia’s state election board is “facing backlash after passing a rule that opponents say will insert chaos into the November election,” WSJ’s Mariah Timms writes. “The board agreed Tuesday on a new definition of election certification, requiring ‘reasonable inquiry’ before local election supervisors sign off on the final results. The move adds uncertain discretion — and potential delays — into what has been a largely formulaic step in the long election process.”
AMERICA AND THE WORLD
|  Palestinians flee the Khan Younis area of the Gaza Strip, following Israeli military evacuation orders on Thursday. | Abdel Kareem Hana/AP Photo | MIDDLE EAST LATEST — Officials from the U.S., Qatar and Egypt are “calling on Israel and Hamas to come back to the negotiating table next week to finalize a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza,” CNN’s Alex Marquardt and Mostafa Salem report. “The three countries have been leading mediating efforts to strike a deal, and US officials claimed they were getting close before the political leader of Hamas, a principal negotiator on the deal, was killed last week in Iran in a blast widely believed to have been orchestrated by Israel. “On Thursday night, the mediators stepped up the pressure on Israel and Hamas to resume talks in either Cairo or Doha next week. A source familiar with the discussions told CNN that a meeting is being planned for August 15 and is expected to happen, but Israel and Hamas need to confirm their attendance.” Meanwhile: U.S. officials have “warned Iran that its newly elected government and economy could suffer a devastating blow if it were to mount a major attack against Israel,” WSJ’s Michael Gordon and Lara Seligman report. More top reads:
- Ukrainian forces’ continued push into battle in Russia’s Kursk region has “stunned Moscow and appeared to involve the use of armored fighting vehicles donated to Kyiv by the United States and its European partners — a development that drew no immediate objection from the Biden administration despite its past restrictions on such use of American weaponry,” WaPo’s Isabelle Khurshudyan, Alex Horton, John Hudson and Samuel Oakford report from Kyiv. The U.S. confirmed yesterday that the operation is in line with the administration’s guidelines on the military aid.
| | | | A message from the Brennan Center for Justice:   | | | TRUMP CARDS NEW ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT DETAILS — In remarkable new bodycam footage, local Pennsylvania police officers can be heard complaining that their warnings to Secret Service agents about the warehouse where THOMAS CROOKS attempted to assassinate Trump were unheeded, WSJ’s Jack Gillum, James Grimaldi, James Fanelli and C. Ryan Barber report. What they said: “I f—ing told them that they needed to post guys f—ing over here…I told them that f—ing Tuesday. … I talked to the Secret Service guys. They’re like, ‘Yeah, no problem. We’re going to post guys over here.’” JUDICIARY SQUARE SCOTUS SCUTTLE — “The Supreme Court’s Trump immunity muddle,” by Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney: “The July 1 immunity ruling was widely viewed as a major victory for Trump because it declared him ‘absolutely immune’ from being prosecuted for some of the actions he took while attempting to subvert the 2020 election. But the ruling is littered with ambiguities, ill-defined standards and unanswered questions about many of the other acts Trump undertook, constitutional experts say.” POLICY CORNER MEGATREND — “Mortgage rates plunge to lowest level in more than a year,” by CNN’s Bryan Mena TV TONIGHT — PBS’ “Washington Week”: Peter Baker, Susan Glasser, Adam Harris and Michael Scherer. SUNDAY SO FAR … ABC “This Week”: Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) … Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) … Charlamagne tha God. Panel: Donna Brazile, Sarah Isgur and Marianna Sotomayor. CBS “Face the Nation”: Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) … retired Gen. Frank McKenzie … Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly. CNN “State of the Union”: Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) … Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) … Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) … EJ Antoni. Panel: Gillian Turner, Juan Williams, Stef Kight and Matthew Continetti. MSNBC “The Sunday Show”: Sen. Bob Casey NewsNation “The Hill Sunday”: Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) … Michael Meehan and Whit Ayres. Panel: Julie Mason, Tia Mitchell and Robert Doar. Univision “Al Punto Con Jorge Ramos”: Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) … Juan Barreto … Lydia Cacho … Adriana Ruano Olivia. Panel: Félix De Bedout, Maity Interiano, Paulina Sodi and Eduardo Padilla.
| | | | SUBSCRIBE TO GLOBAL PLAYBOOK: Don’t miss out on POLITICO’s Global Playbook, our newsletter taking you inside pivotal discussions at the most influential gatherings in the world. Suzanne Lynch delivers the world's elite and influential moments directly to you. Stay in the global loop. SUBSCRIBE NOW. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | Joe Biden needs a, uh, haberdasher recommendation. Kamala Harris’ campaign staff might be too online. Chasten Buttigieg has been hitting the casinos. Paul Strauss, is that you? Susanna Quinn has a new podcast, “The Cancer SIGNAL.” FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Sam Cornale is taking leave from his role as DNC executive director to serve as the traveling chief of staff for Gov. Tim Walz on the campaign trail. He will return to his role at the DNC following the election. In the interim, deputy executive directors Roger Lau and Monica Guardiola will lead the DNC through Election Day. — Spencer Davis, Kaeley Gemmill and Mitchell Carney are launching Beacon Strategies, a new political and public affairs consulting firm. All three worked on Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-S.C.) presidential campaign, where Davis served as Data Director, Gemmill served as digital director and Carney served as political director. They are also John Cornyn, Greg Abbott and Susan Collins alums. TRANSITION — Alexandria Maloney is now director of external affairs at the Kettering Foundation. She previously was senior membership manager at the Truman National Security Project and also serves as the president of the Black Professionals in International Affairs. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) … NYT’s Julian Barnes and Ken Vogel … Ann Selzer of Selzer & Co. … Kathleen Matthews … Heidi Elswick … Michael Fletcher … Lockheed Martin’s Marcel Lettre … SmartPower’s Brian Keane … Tim Tagaris ... Bill Burton … Sharon Wagener … Brian Hart ... Kerry Troup … POLITICO’s Jordan Hoshko ... BBC’s John Simpson … David Sours … Fred Brown of Dezenhall Resources … Courtney Bradway of Cornerstone … former Reps. John Sweeney (R-N.Y.) and Charles Djou (R-Hawaii) … Mike Mears … William Smith … Gable Brady … Rhonda Bentz Bozzella … Kate Leone … Lindsay Singleton of Rokk Solutions … Lauren Horan of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office … Ann E.W. Stone … Chris Sautter … Virginia Pancoe … New Deal Strategies’ Rebecca Kirszner Katz … Amy Rutkin … Mercury’s Dan Bank (4-0) … Chris Cuomo … Oracle’s Joel Hinzman … Hoda Kotb Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us at 202-556-3307. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Mike DeBonis, deputy editor Zack Stanton and Playbook Daily Briefing producer Callan Tansill-Suddath. Correction: Yesterday’s Playbook misspelled Meridith McGraw’s name.
| | | | A message from the Brennan Center for Justice: In response to a cascade of ethics scandals laying bare a system in which Supreme Court justices wield tremendous power for decades with little accountability, President Biden has called for 18-year term limits and a binding code of ethics. These reforms have bipartisan support among a majority of Americans. Congress must take action to establish 18-year term limits and bring regular turnover to the bench. Doing so would save the Court from itself, helping to drain the toxicity from the confirmation process and restore balance to the bench. These are conservative ideas, resting on a foundational premise of accountability: nobody should hold too much public power for too long. The result would be a Court that better reflects American values. To learn more about the constitutionality of term limits, visit the Brennan Center’s term limits resources. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Ottawa Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |
Comments
Post a Comment