| | | | |  | | By Ryan Lizza, Eugene Daniels and Rachael Bade | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine
|  The media outfits that President Joe Biden respects the most are telling him to call it quits after Thursday's debate. | AFP via Getty Images | |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | Friday was a story of the D.C. class that chatters versus the D.C. class that matters. The pundits abandoned JOE BIDEN in droves while elected officials stayed silent or stuck with him. In 2017, when Biden was plotting his first campaign against then-President DONALD TRUMP, he went looking for a high-brow outlet to publish a piece about his reaction to the events in Charlottesville, Virginia. The article — “‘We Are Living Through a Battle for the Soul of This Nation’” — found a home in The Atlantic. Biden is known to be a regular cable TV viewer and is especially fond of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” (We’re told he watches “throughout the morning” when he can, and when he can’t aides monitor the show and sometimes brief him on what was said.) The admiration is mutual. In March, co-host JOE SCARBOROUGH declared, “I think he’s better than he’s ever been — intellectually, analytically.” When it comes to his media diet, EVAN OSNOS, author of a Biden biography, once noted that Biden is fond of “what we would call the classics” — including The New York Times, where Biden “pays a lot of attention to the columnists.” Biden spent hours of his time briefing TOM FRIEDMAN during the pullout of Afghanistan, and Friedman and other Times columnists have been regulars at off-the-record sessions with the president. Back in the Obama era, while the First Family kept much of the Washington press corps at arm’s length, Joe and JILL BIDEN hosted an annual summer party on the lawn of the vice president’s mansion, where he would square off in water gun battles against reporters and their children. But yesterday, after his calamitous Thursday night debate, one by one, it was these same TV hosts, columnists and media organs who abandoned Biden. After eviscerating his debate performance, Scarborough said now is “the last chance for Democrats to decide whether this man we’ve known and loved for a very long time is up to the task” of running for reelection. (Notably, his wife and co-host MIKA BRZEZINSKI did not join him on this.) The Atlantic ran a half-dozen articles calling on Biden to step aside. The headline on a piece by FRANKLIN FOER, author of a favorable best-selling account of Biden’s first two years in office, was “Someone Needs to Take Biden’s Keys.” At The New York Times, a new column or editorial crucifying Biden for his debate appearance and calling for Democrats to swap him out for a new nominee trickled out from morning until night on Friday. (Actually, NICK KRISTOF kicked things off minutes after the debate ended.) Several people I talked to about Biden’s relationship with the press said that it was undoubtedly Friedman’s betrayal that would sting the most. His piece set a new bar for framing his decision as taken more in sorrow than in anger. Friedman wrote that he was in a hotel room in Lisbon watching the debate and that he actually wept. Then he banged out a column telling his old friend he “must bow out of the race.” By the afternoon, everything had been said but not everyone at the Times had said it. The final blow came Friday evening, when the full editorial board weighed in, saying he had been “an admirable president” but is now “engaged in a reckless gamble.” On social media, Biden aides mocked the piece. “The last time Joe Biden lost the New York Times editorial board's endorsement it turned out pretty well for him,” CEDRIC RICHMOND, one of Biden’s campaign co-chairs, told us in a statement. As John Harris points out this morning, there’s a disconnect between the tidal wave of elite opinion and the secular decline of its influence: “Just as Biden’s age and affect can make him seem like a visitor from another generation, the notion of prominent commentators having wide sway over the national agenda is itself an artifact of an earlier era.” But Biden’s relationship with the elite media has always been a key to understanding him. A thesis of Foer’s book, for example, is that Biden both craves the admiration of the D.C. opinion elites, and has long used their frequent rejection of him as the fuel to power his political ascent. (This is one way in which he is not so different from Trump.) It was, after all, The New York Times’ MAUREEN DOWD who crippled Biden’s first presidential campaign with her reporting on his plagiarism. Despite that rocky history, Biden has never given up on the Times — including Dowd, who has known and psychoanalyzed her fellow Irishman for decades — even if the paper’s columnists have now all given up on him. Dowd delivered her cri de coeur this morning, and as is typical it was the most devastating of them all: “He’s being selfish. He’s putting himself ahead of the country. He’s surrounded by opportunistic enablers. He has created a reality distortion field where we’re told not to believe what we’ve plainly seen. His hubris is infuriating. He says he’s doing this for us, but he’s really doing it for himself. I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about the other president.” Unlike Ivy leaguers BILL CLINTON and BARACK OBAMA, the liberal media establishment — more and more the product of America’s best schools as Biden grew older — never swooned for Biden. He was counted out in the 2020 primaries and the Biden team resented it. There are other longtime skeptics who were primed to turn on Biden the minute he showed signs of not being up to the task. The four former Obama officials who host the influential “Pod Save America” podcast were out early Friday with an episode in which they called on Democrats to have an open debate about the merits of an open convention. Their former colleagues DAVID AXELROD and DAVID PLOUFFE, who personally vetted Biden for Obama in 2008, joined the chorus on “Hacks on Tap” hours later. JON STEWART, host of “The Daily Show,” who in February was pilloried by liberals for mocking Biden’s age, was being celebrated by some of the same critics yesterday for his biting post-debate commentary. Biden is not known to be a big Substack reader, but if he were, he would see some former top-tier defenders making the same points: JOE KLEIN (“He needs to stand down, as soon as possible”), ANDREW SULLIVAN (“For God's Sake, Withdraw”), and NATE SILVER (“Joe Biden should drop out”). And on it goes elsewhere among the media personalities and outlets he most respects: DAVID IGNATIUS, The Economist, The Washington Post editorial board. History suggests that Biden aides will privately stew about the media dogpile while publicly rolling their eyes about how it doesn’t matter. And it might not. It is surely more significant that Biden won support from Clinton and Obama on Friday, that he delivered a well-received rally speech, that polls showed only minor movement in the race and that not a single Democratic elected official called for Biden to drop out of the race. Brzezinski told us this morning that she understands why. “I was staying up late listening to everybody freak out on the phone calling Joe. And I literally was just shaking my head, going, ‘These people need to get diapers,’” she said. “It was one bad night. And it's not the end of the world. Joe Biden has come back from way worse.” “I’m not walking away,” she added, “Of all of his media allies and friends, I'm not even close to doing that. Not even close.” Good Saturday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.
| | | | A message from The American Petroleum Institute: For nearly four years, Americans have faced the pain of high inflation and global conflict.
The American Petroleum Institute’s Policy Roadmap contains five actions policy makers can take today to secure energy leadership, protect consumers and help reduce inflation. Americans deserve answers. | | | More post-debate reads …
- “Inside Kamala Harris’ post-debate dilemma,” by Eugene, Jennifer Haberkorn and Myah Ward: “Names including California Gov. GAVIN NEWSOM and Michigan Gov. GRETCHEN WHITMER trended online as potential replacements for Biden on the Democratic ticket, while [VP KAMALA] HARRIS — by several measures the most obvious and best-positioned candidate — was left to publicly defend Biden at the single worst moment of their four-year-old political partnership. That was to the chagrin of some Harris allies, who are privately expressing frustration that her name is not being mentioned in the same company as other ambitious Democrats. But they can do little about it: Harris is laboring under a de facto mandate to defend him.”
- “Jill Biden Could Make or Break Biden’s Campaign. She Says She’s All In,” by NYT’s Katie Rogers: “In those first stricken moments after a raspy, rambling and at times incoherent performance, he turned to his wife, Jill Biden. … The first lady’s message to him was clear: They’d been counted out before, she was all in, and he — they — would stay in the race. Her thinking, according to people close to her, was that it was a bad night. And bad nights end.”
- “Haley Warns Trump to Prepare for Younger Rival, Renews Call for Cognitive Tests,” by WSJ’s John McCormick: “NIKKI HALEY … said Democrats need to dump President Biden as their presumptive nominee following his halting debate performance as she reiterated her calls for cognitive testing of all federal candidates. But the former South Carolina governor, in a Wall Street Journal interview, said Republicans shouldn’t assume replacing Biden would inherently help Trump. ‘They are going to be smart about it: they’re going to bring somebody younger, they’re going to bring somebody vibrant, they’re going to bring somebody tested,’ she said.”
- “Major Democratic Donors Ask Themselves: What to Do About Biden?” by Theodore Schleifer, Kenneth P. Vogel and Shane Goldmacher: “In group chats and hushed discussions, some wealthy Democrats floated interventions, others hoped Mr. Biden would have an epiphany and decide to exit on his own, and still more strategized about steering dollars to down-ballot candidates. … The crisis in the donor class — outlined in interviews with almost two dozen donors and fund-raisers, many of whom insisted on anonymity to discuss their private conversations — could not come at a worse moment for Mr. Biden.”
- “The World Saw Biden Deteriorating. Democrats Ignored the Warnings,” by WSJ’s Annie Linskey, Laurence Norman and Drew Hinshaw: “European officials had already been expressing worries in private about Biden’s focus and stamina before Thursday’s debate, with some senior diplomats saying they had tracked a noticeable deterioration in the president’s faculties in meetings since last summer. There were real doubts about how Biden could successfully manage a second term, but one senior European diplomat said U.S. administration officials in private discussions denied there was any problem.”
THE PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW: GOV. SPENCER COX — This week on Playbook Deep Dive, Ryan sat down with Utah’s governor, who fended off a right-wing challenge to win his primary for reelection on Tuesday, and discussed Cox’s emerging role as the new face of Trump skepticism in the GOP. In a wide-ranging discussion, they also talked about trends in Utah politics, Cox’s disagreements with bothTrump and #NeverTrumpers, and why “disagreeing better” doesn’t mean giving up your most strongly held beliefs. Listen on Apple or Spotify or read a lightly edited transcript here.
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| | | | | A message from The American Petroleum Institute:   | | | | | WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY | | On the trail Biden and first lady JILL BIDEN will attend campaign events in East Hampton, New York, and Red Bank, New Jersey, this afternoon. In the evening, the Bidens will travel to Camp David. VP KAMALA HARRIS will deliver remarks at a campaign event in California this afternoon.
| | | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | 9 THINGS THAT STUCK WITH US
|  Trump advisers like Chris LaCivita are set to significantly shape the Republican Party platform. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | 1. PLATFORM HEEL: This year’s official Republican platform could be drastically scaled back from past election years, if Trump’s top advisers have their way. CHRIS LaCIVITA and SUSIE WILES sent a memo Thursday calling on Republicans to ditch the usual “textbook-long” document, NYT’s Shane Goldmacher reports, in order to “ensure our policy commitments to the American people are clear, concise and easily digestible.” The last Republican platform, assembled in 2016, ran to 60 pages; the party skipped writing one entirely in 2020. “Publishing an unnecessarily verbose treatise will provide more fuel for our opponent’s fire of misinformation and misrepresentation to voters,” the advisers’ memo reads. What they’re hoping to avoid: “Anti-abortion activists, in particular, have been gearing up for a fight in case the Trump team seeks to dilute or delete longstanding language in order to make Mr. Trump appear more moderate on the issue. In hopes of keeping any disagreements out of the public view, the party is planning to have the platform committee meet behind closed doors in Milwaukee a week before the broader convention.” 2. STILL IN DENIAL: This is the moment the Biden campaign would like to be talking about after the debate: After three tries, CNN’s DANA BASH finally elicited a tepid response from Trump on whether he would accept the election results: “If it’s a fair and legal and good election — absolutely,” Trump said, refusing to commit outright. Had Biden not flopped, it is a moment that could have dominated the headlines, but it still “may provide a foreshadowing of his handling of this election,” Zach Montellaro writes. “His answers Thursday night echo what he said on stage four years ago about accepting the results of the 2020 election — answers that ultimately preceded him trying to overturn an election that he lost, culminating in a mob of his supporters storming the Capitol.” Related read: “Trump dodged a broad range of questions as Biden struggled on stage,” by WaPo’s Josh Dawsey 3. THE FRENCH CONNECTION: France’s two-stage parliamentary elections begin tomorrow, with the far-right National Rally expected to make big gains against President EMMANUEL MACRON’s governing coalition. The prospect of a hard-right turn by America’s oldest ally is being greeted with apprehension in Washington, where the elections are being increasingly seen as a rash misstep, Eli Stokols and Nahal Toosi report. “At first, people in Biden’s inner circle were merely startled by Macron’s gamble, viewing it as the kind of daring maneuver that has defined Macron’s disruptive political career,” they write. “But that initial reaction has more recently curdled into puzzlement and dismay, as Washington has begun to accept that Macron is headed for defeat.” Touché: “At the moment, Biden and his team aren’t in much of a position to question political gambits” after Biden’s decision to call an early debate with Trump backfired spectacularly. 4. SCOTUS STEPBACK: “Weakening Regulatory Agencies Will Be a Key Legacy of the Roberts Court,” by NYT’s Charlie Savage: “Each decision turned on a different rationale, but both pointed in the same direction: eroding the power of the federal regulatory bureaucracy. And the pair of decisions are only the most recent notes to sound that theme, making clear that the current majority’s pursuit of a deregulatory agenda will be part of its legacy. All six Republican appointees on the court came of age amid the conservative legal movement. Curbing the so-called administrative state has long been a central goal of the libertarian faction of that movement — and the wealthy donors who have funded its rise over the past half century.” Related read: “A String of Supreme Court Decisions Hits Hard at Environmental Rules,” by NYT’s Coral Davenport 5. YOWZA: “GOP congressman Scott Perry shares antisemitic meme on social media,” by Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel: “Rep. SCOTT PERRY (R-PA) approvingly shared an antisemitic meme on his campaign’s Facebook page earlier this week, underscoring a broader pattern in which the Pennsylvania Republican has espoused conspiracy theories and used inflammatory rhetoric while in office. ‘Says it all…,’ Perry wrote on Tuesday in a comment he posted above the meme, which invokes several antisemitic tropes. … The Perry campaign removed the post on Friday afternoon after Jewish Insider reached out for comment.” 6. WATCHING THE WATCHERS: “GOP recruits poll monitors from suburban areas to monitor the vote in Democratic cities,” by NBC’s Adam Edelman: “Republicans have made suburban areas a recruiting ground for their army of Election Day poll monitors, with plans to deploy some into urban, Democratic epicenters that have remained the focus of conservatives’ errant claims of voter fraud. The strategy has the potential to be uniquely disruptive to voters and election staff this fall, nonpartisan elections experts say, given that the volunteers would be dispatched to monitor areas with different political and demographic makeups than their own — and potentially different protocols for casting and counting ballots.” 7. YOUTH MOVEMENT: “Can a civics teacher persuade her students to believe in democracy?” by WaPo’s Greg Jaffe: “So far, polling suggests that young voter turnout in 2024 may not match 2020’s rate. In April, only 41 percent of Black people 18 to 39 told a Washington Post-Ipsos poll that they were certain to vote this year, down from 61 percent in June 2020. The poll mirrored what [Allentown, Pennsylvania teacher SHANNON] SALTER was seeing among her students, whose interest in voting had been hobbled by poverty, racism and two aging presidential candidates seemingly far removed from the world of a struggling Allentown teen. ‘I’m pushing against more pessimism than I ever have before,’ she said.” 8. GUNS IN AMERICA: “The smallest victims: Why does America keep allowing toddlers to shoot themselves?” by NBC’s Suzy Khimm: “Despite America’s deep divide on guns, everyone seems willing to agree that no toddler should be able to find a loaded, unsecured weapon and fire it. Unlike so many other types of gun violence that plague the U.S., this appears, on paper, to be a solvable problem. … And yet, a person is injured or killed nearly every day in America because a child has unintentionally fired a gun, according to reports from 2015 to 2022 compiled by Everytown, an advocacy group for firearm safety. And children under 6 are among the most likely victims.” 9. THE BACKSTORY: “How a Trump-Beating, #MeToo Legal Legend Lost Her Firm,” by NYT’s Katie Baker: “The seemingly abrupt departure of [ROBERTA KAPLAN] — a gay woman who had become a heroic figure to many on the left for her willingness to take on powerful men like Mr. Trump and ELON MUSK — stunned the legal community. But it had been years in the making, according to interviews with more than 30 current and former colleagues, clients and others. … Many former employees said they were proud of the work they had done and admired Ms. Kaplan’s fearless pursuit of big targets. But they also said the workplace environment she had presided over could be unbearable.”
| | | | A message from The American Petroleum Institute:   | | | CLICKER — “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker — 17 funnies
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| GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Ryan Lizza: — “The Strange Journey of John Lennon’s Stolen Patek Philippe Watch,” by the New Yorker’s Jay Fielden: “For decades, Yoko Ono thought that the birthday gift was in her Dakota apartment. But it had been removed and sold—and now awaits a court ruling in Geneva.” — “Why Do India and China Keep Fighting Over This Desolate Terrain?” by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee for NYT Magazine: “Long-running battles in the Himalayas may foretell a more dangerous conflict.” — “Inside Snapchat’s Teen Opioid Crisis,” by Rolling Stone’s Paul Solotaroff: “Law-enforcement sources and grieving families allege that the social media giant Snapchat has helped fuel a teen-overdose epidemic across the country. Now, their parents are fighting back.” — “Opioid deaths rose 50 percent during the pandemic. In these places, they fell,” by POLITICO’s Ruth Reader: “A federal plan to promote treatment and distribute overdose reversal drugs showed promise. Communities are trying to keep it going.” — “He wanted to throw an Idaho town’s first Pride. Angry residents had other ideas,” by WaPo’s Casey Parks: “Tom Wheeler envisioned a celebratory first Pride for rural Canyon County, Idaho. But in a state that has led the nation in passing anti-LGBTQ laws, the festival quickly sparked outcry.” — “Grief Guides,” by Meg Bernhard for n+1: “Among the death doulas.” — “The House of Arnault,” by Businessweek’s Brad Stone and Angelina Rascouet: “His company, LVMH, bought up many of the world’s major luxury brands. And he’s not finished shopping.” — “To Follow the Real Early Human Diet, Eat Everything,” by Scientific American’s Kate Wong: “Nutrition influencers claim we should eat meat-heavy diets like our ancestors did. But our ancestors didn’t actually eat that way.”
| | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | Thomas Massie shared the devastating news of his wife Rhonda’s death. Steve Bannon is set to report to prison on Monday. Debbie Dingell was in quite the Friday mood. OUT AND ABOUT — The American Institute of Architects yesterday afternoon hosted a welcome reception on the Speaker’s Balcony for newly sworn-in Architect of the Capitol Thomas Austin and his wife Shannon Austin. SPOTTED: William McFarland, Joseph Yates, Chuck Iliff, Jay Hurst, Hannah Fraher, Elliot Smith, Evan Van Orman, David Pore, Mike Tomberlin, Theresa Reed, Les Shepherd, Arathi Gowda, Gabe Maser, Alexander Cochran, Anne Law, Erin Waldron and Blake Nanney. — The Guardian US and Open Markets hosted an event, “Fixing the Information Crisis Before it’s Too Late,” at the National Press Club on Thursday. SPOTTED: Jonathan Kanter, FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, Zephyr Teachout, Barry Lynn, Betsy Reed, Chris Argentieri, Kai Falkenberg, Blake Montgomery, Sohrab Ahmari, Courtney Radsch, Ashley Woolheater, Matt Mittenthal and Rachel White. — Democrats and Republicans in the financial services industry gathered on Thursday night for a reboot of the “Touching Gloves” bipartisan happy hour hosted by Jaliya Nagahawatte, Iyanla Kollock, Ernie Jolly and George Rogers. SPOTTED: Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.), Kevin Cameron, Jae Jang, Kemi Giwa, Petrina Thomas, Megan Guiltinan, Abby Truhart, Saat Alety and Katie Phillips. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Playbook’s own Garrett Ross … Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) … White House’s Amish Shah … Laura Rozen … Josh Meyer … CNN’s Evan Pérez … Carl Forti … Ben Jarrett … Christina Pearson … Don Verrilli of Munger, Tolles & Olson … Robin Colwell of BGR Group … Max Virkus … Christian Marrone of Standard Industries … CMS’ Tony Salters … Jordan Davis … Marie Policastro … The Hill’s Hanna Trudo … Roku’s Kaya Singleton … Katie Zirkelbach … Vijay Menon of Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-Mo.) office … Owen Kilmer … Kia’s Christopher Wenk … POLITICO’s Caitlin Bugas … former Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) (8-0) … Alexa Newlin … Emily Spain THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here): ABC “This Week”: Anthony Fauci. Panel: Donna Brazile, Reince Priebus, Jen Psaki and Bill Kristol. CNN “State of the Union”: Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) … Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) … Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Panel: Scott Jennings, Ashley Allison, Kristen Soltis Anderson and Kate Bedingfield. CBS “Face the Nation”: Catherine Russell … Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) … Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio). FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) … Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) … Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas). Legal panel: Carrie Severino, Jonathan Turley and Elizabeth Wydra. Panel: Richard Fowler, Mary Katharine Ham, Mollie Hemingway and Stef Kight. NBC “Meet the Press”: North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum … Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.). Panel: Cristina Londoño, Jennifer Palmieri, Marc Short and Chuck Todd. NewsNation “The Hill Sunday”: Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) … RNC Chair Michael Whatley … Randy Barnett. Panel: David Drucker, Julie Mason and Sabrina Siddiqui. MSNBC “The Weekend”: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. 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.
| | | | A message from The American Petroleum Institute: For nearly four years, the American people have faced the pain of high inflation and global conflict. Now, more than ever, it’s time to end political gamesmanship. Let’s work together on solutions that help American consumers and secure our energy future.
At a time of persistent inflation and geopolitical instability, the American people need more affordable energy and less partisanship. Here are five actions policymakers can take now that will make a difference.
a. Protect consumer choice
b. Bolster geopolitical strength
c. Leverage our abundant natural resources
d. Reform our broken permitting system
e. Advance sensible tax policy
Let’s work together on solutions that help address the consequences of inflation, while securing America’s energy future. Learn more. | | | | | | | 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 | | | | |
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