| | | | |  | | By Ryan Lizza, Eugene Daniels and Rachael Bade | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | WHAT A CENTURY THIS MONTH HAS BEEN — “I don’t know what they’ve got in these performance enhancers, but I’m feeling pretty jacked up,” President JOE BIDEN posted to X one month ago today, moments before taking the debate stage in Atlanta. (h/t Rob Pyers)
|  There’s a quiet murmur we’ve been hearing from some corners of the right all week: Does Donald Trump regret picking Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio)? | Julia Nikhinson/AP Photo | THE VANCE CATFIGHT — The WSJ editorial board is joining the pile-on over Sen. JD VANCE’s (R-Ohio) comments about “childless cat ladies.” In a tough piece posted last night, Paul Gigot and colleagues call the comment “the sort of smart-aleck crack that gets laughs in certain right-wing male precincts” but that “doesn’t play well with the millions of female voters, many of them Republican, who will decide the presidential race.” They see the speed and breadth of the coverage of Vance’s remark as evidence “that this is Mr. Vance’s first big cultural impression, and not a good one.” They are unimpressed with Vance’s efforts to clean things up on Megyn Kelly’s podcast yesterday (“he wasn’t at all apologetic”), and they come away with this surprising conclusion about the episode: “One possibility is that at some level Mr. Vance really doesn’t respect people who make different life choices.” And then they move on to attack some of Vance’s other past ideas. His proposal that families without children should pay higher taxes is “bad policy” and “bad politics” and would amount to using the tax code “as a political and cultural weapon against people who don’t share his values.” The editorial gives voice to what’s been a quiet murmur we’ve been hearing from some corners of the right all week: Does DONALD TRUMP regret picking Vance? The Trump campaign “can’t be happy about having to defend” Vance instead of attacking VP KAMALA HARRIS, the Journal writes. They end with a stinging conclusion about how Vance should start using his wife as a surrogate because USHA VANCE “might help persuade swing voters that Mr. Vance respects women more than his comments have made it seem.” The piece is a notable escalation of the war within the GOP over the Vance pick. The Journal editorial board has sharply divergent views from Vance on foreign policy and trade and doesn’t have much use for his populist bashing of corporations. RUPERT MURDOCH reportedly lobbied Trump not to select Vance, and Vance allies see this piece as simply the continuation of that fight, with the Journal doing Murdoch’s bidding. We reached out to the Trump campaign about the WSJ editorial and Vance’s tough week, and Vance spokesman WILLIAM MARTIN sent over this statement: “It comes as no surprise that Democrats and their allies in the media have twisted Senator Vance’s words in an effort to smear him and protect Kamala Harris. Unfortunately for them, poll after poll shows that the American people are rejecting the radical Kamala Harris agenda, which has given us record high inflation and a wide open southern border. Those are the issues voters actually care about, no matter how much the leftwing media wishes otherwise.”
| | A message from Capital One: Capital One recently announced our historic, five-year, $265 billion community benefits plan in connection with our proposed acquisition of Discover to advance economic opportunity and financial well-being. This plan is twice as large as any other community commitment developed in connection with a bank acquisition and demonstrates that the combined Capital One and Discover will create an opportunity to provide more lending, investment, and services for underserved communities than the institutions would undertake on a stand-alone basis. | | | Yet it’s not just the left who are questioning Vance’s fitness for the job. As his running mate’s oppo has overshadowed Trump all week, other conservative voices have piped up to question the pick. Irie Sentner and Jared Mitovich run down some of the doubts that have emerged: — “If you had a time machine, if you go back two weeks, would [Trump] have picked JD Vance again?” asked BEN SHAPIRO. “I doubt it.” — A Republican lawmaker: “Find me one publicly elected official in the Senate who is pushing JD Vance other than MIKE LEE. I’ll wait.” — A Republican on Vance writing an introduction to a book by KEVIN ROBERTS, the Heritage Foundation chief and leader of Project 2025: “You’ve got Trump trashing this Project 2025, and Vance writing the foreword.” Vance has also served as a convenient punching bag for Democrats auditioning to be Harris’ running mate. The latest to weigh in is Transportation Secretary PETE BUTTIGIEG, who tells the NYT today, “because he spoke unequivocally about how sinister and unfit Donald Trump was just a few years ago, only to flip around, embrace him and be on his ticket so that he can have more power, people are wondering if he has any core at all.” (But Pete’s harshest line here may be when he says he’s never read “Hillbilly Elegy.”) The dive into Vance’s transformation from Trump hater to Trump running mate continues with this NYT piece surfacing correspondence between Vance and a transgender friend. “He’s just a bad man,” Vance writes about Trump in 2016. “A morally reprehensible human being.” He also tells his friend, “The more white people feel like voting for trump, the more black people will suffer. I really believe that.” WaPo reports that Usha Vance agreed with her husband about Trump. According to a friend, “She was generally appalled by Trump, from the moment of his first election.” Eli Stokols and Elena Schneider have a great piece about how the Vance faceplant has helped the Harris campaign develop a simple post-partisan theme about her opponents: they’re weird. The power of this argument is that, as the Journal notes, it has escaped the narrow blue-red politics conversation and become a cultural phenomenon. It’s not just JENNIFER ANISTON. TAYLOR SWIFT fans have also taken umbrage. (She’s not married and apparently really likes cats.) The cliche in politics is that the first rule for a running mate is do no harm. Vance already started off “as the least liked VP nominee (non-incumbent) since 1980 following his/her party’s convention,” CNN numbers guy Harry Enten said recently. Theoretically, Trump could replace Vance if he wants, Business Insider notes. But Trump so far has stood by his man. “He’s doing a fantastic job,” Trump said on Thursday. The two are scheduled to rally together tonight in St. Cloud, Minnesota. We’ll be watching the body language closely. Good Saturday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza. WEEKEND LISTENING — On this week’s episode of Playbook Deep Dive, Ryan called up Eugene and Jonathan Martin to unpack this historic week in politics and talk through some key questions: What really caused Biden to end his quest for a second term? How did Harris lock up the nomination so fast? How have the issues, swing states and demographics that will decide the 2024 election changed? And how is Trump responding to all of this? Check it out on Apple or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
| | | | A message from Capital One:   | | | | | WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY | | At the White House Biden has nothing on his public schedule. On the trail Harris will travel to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, to speak at a campaign fundraiser in the afternoon, before returning to Washington. The event, which will include the likes of JAMES TAYLOR, YO-YO MA and DEVAL PATRICK, is expected to raise $1.4 million, Lisa Kashinsky reports. Trump will headline the Bitcoin2024 conference in Nashville with a speech this afternoon, before heading to St. Cloud, Minnesota, for a rally with Vance tonight.
| | | | Pro Briefing: Kamala Harris and the World. What we expect on foreign policy and trade. Join POLITICO Pro for a deep-dive conversation with our specialist reporters about the vice president’s approach to foreign policy. Register Now. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | | |  After Pennsylvania took a long time to count votes in 2020, the state looks headed for a repeat this fall. | Gene J. Puskar, File/AP Photo | 9 THINGS THAT STUCK WITH US 1. DEMOCRACY WATCH: “Pennsylvania presidential election results could again take days to count,” by WaPo’s Colby Itkowitz and Derek Hawkins: “The protracted counting process [in 2020] became a core part of the false narrative that helped propel Trump’s ‘Stop the Steal’ crusade … Despite widespread calls for change, Pennsylvania is likely to again take several days … The Democratic-led Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed a bill in May [to allow for pre-canvassing mail ballots] … But the Republican-controlled State Senate never brought it for a vote.” 2. SURVEY SAYS: The latest batch of polls offers more evidence that Harris’ entrance into the race has roughly brought it back to almost tied. A WSJ national survey finds Trump leading by 2 head to head, or Harris by 1 in an expanded field. Fox News finds Trump and Harris tied or within 1 point in the all-important states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, while Harris leads by 6 in Minnesota. And another Minnesota survey from KSTP/SurveyUSA gives Harris a 10-point lead. 3. ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT FALLOUT: Republicans grew angry yesterday at FBI Director CHRISTOPHER WRAY’s indication that it wasn’t totally clear whether a bullet hit Trump’s ear during his attempted assassination, Jordain Carney reports. By the end of the day, the FBI confirmed that it was a bullet — either a whole one or fragments of one — that struck the former president, per CNN. Trump appeared in public without an ear bandage for the first time yesterday, and his former White House doctor, Rep. RONNY JACKSON (R-Texas), said he’s now doing very well, per the Daily Mail. Unbowed by the shooting, Trump announced on Truth Social that he would return to Butler, Pennsylvania, for another rally at some point. 4. THE HARRIS CAMPAIGN: As Harris quickly ramps up her presidential campaign machine, Democrats are seeing an outpouring of enthusiasm, from volunteers to donations, AP’s Lisa Mascaro, Kevin Freking and Stephen Groves report. Many of them are making the tentative bet that they think America can elect a Black woman to the Oval Office, WSJ’s Joshua Jamerson, John McCormick and Tarini Parti report. And some Never Trump Republicans are coming on board too, per NBC’s Katherine Doyle. Harris now has to stake out her own identity in the race without diverging too sharply from Biden, a balancing act that will be made easier by the fact that they’ve mostly agreed while in office, NYT’s Peter Baker writes. In one of her first explicit moves away from her more progressive stances in the 2020 cycle, Harris’ campaign told The Hill’s Rachel Frazin that she won’t seek to ban fracking. On foreign policy, Harris’ campaign put out a memo seeking to emphasize her “strong record,” Bloomberg’s Iain Marlow reports. In her vice presidency, she’s been known on the world stage for both a warm personal touch and a sternness when needed, making the best impressions when she goes unscripted, NYT’s Matina Stevis-Gridneff and Zolan Kanno-Youngs find. On the flip side, Russia is viewing Harris worriedly as a fairly unknown quantity, WaPo’s Catherine Belton reports. 5. VEEPSTAKES: Harris has just two weeks to make her first big decision, selecting a running mate, as WaPo lays out. Most of the contenders are men: As Lisa Kashinsky captures from a campaign stop with Michigan Gov. GRETCHEN WHITMER in Durham, New Hampshire, even many Democrats who love Whitmer aren’t sure if the country is ready for two women on the ticket. Some of the top contenders: A Harris event in Philly turned into a fan club for Pennsylvania Gov. JOSH SHAPIRO, Jared Mitovich and Brittany Gibson report. … The NYT is out with in-depth profiles of Sen. MARK KELLY (D-Ariz.), from Jonathan Weisman and Jazmine Ulloa, and Kentucky Gov. ANDY BESHEAR, from Nick Corasaniti. … North Carolina Gov. ROY COOPER is working with Harris on a big medical debt effort, WaPo’s Dan Diamond reports. … Buttigieg is grappling with new Delta Air Lines headaches, Oriana Pawlyk and Chris Marquette report. 6. HAPPENING MONDAY: “Biden will announce Supreme Court reform plans next week,” by Adam Cancryn: “Biden is likely to endorse establishing term limits for justices and an enforceable code of ethics, in an announcement that represents a remarkable shift for a president who had long resisted calls to overhaul the high court. He is also expected to push for a constitutional amendment limiting immunity for presidents and certain other officeholders, in a response to the court’s July 1 ruling.” 7. WHAT WON’T MAKE TRUMP HAPPY: “Justice Dept. Settles Lawsuit With Former F.B.I. Officials Targeted by Trump,” by NYT’s Adam Goldman: “The Justice Department settled a lawsuit on Friday with two former F.B.I. officials who had accused the Trump administration of violating their privacy by sharing their texts disparaging former President Donald J. Trump with the news media. … As part of the settlement, the government agreed to pay the former officials, PETER STRZOK and LISA PAGE, concluding at least some of the litigation. The amount was not disclosed in court filings, but Mr. Strzok’s law firm said he received $1.2 million.”
| | A message from Capital One: Developed in partnership with a coalition of leading community groups, our five-year community benefits plan includes significant financial and programmatic commitments through community development, Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), philanthropy and pro bono, consumer card and auto lending, small business and supplier diversity, and bank access. These commitments will aim to expand economic opportunity for underserved consumers, including those in low- and moderate-income (LMI) neighborhoods, rural areas, and communities of color. It will also support increased access to best-in-class products and services for unbanked or underbanked consumers as well as consumers across the credit spectrum and expand access to capital and opportunity. | | | 8. BIBI WRAPS UP: Israeli PM BENJAMIN NETANYAHU concluded his U.S. trip with a Trump meeting yesterday in Florida, where the former president gave him a warm reception and criticized Harris’ sterner approach, per Bloomberg. But in Washington, the message from both Democrats and Republicans was unambiguous: You need to end the war, WSJ’s Rory Jones reports. Per Axios’ Barak Ravid, Israel gave the U.S. its latest proposal today. But with Netanyahu not backing down in his congressional address, critics viewed his plans for peace and a post-war Palestinian future to be essentially not viable, WaPo’s Abigail Hauslohner and Louisa Loveluck report. 9. LOOK WHO’S BACK: “Trump ally who denies 2020 election results threatens law enforcement,” by WaPo’s Patrick Marley and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez: “PATRICK BYRNE, who has funded efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 election, said in an online forum Thursday that law enforcement would face ‘a piano wire and a blowtorch’ if they did not drop a case against [TINA PETERS]. Byrne, a former CEO of online retailer Overstock, used the phrase half a dozen times Thursday as he participated in a nearly three-hour-long event on X Spaces. … On Friday, he downplayed his comments, saying he had been speaking metaphorically and is committed to peace.” CLICKER — “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker — 17 funnies
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Joel Pett - Tribune Content Agency | GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Ryan Lizza: — “In Search of Elusive Justice,” by the L.A. Times’ Scott Duke Harris from Oct. 24, 2004: “[Kamala] Harris says she wants nothing more than to be judged on her ability to deliver that elusive ideal of justice.” — “Trials and tribulations of Kamala Harris, D.A.,” by the S.F. Chronicle’s Jaxon Van Derbeken from March 20, 2006: “2 years into term, prosecutor, police have their differences.” — “Kamala Harris, a ‘Top Cop’ in the Era of Black Lives Matter,” by the NYT Magazine’s Emily Bazelon from May 25, 2016: “As she campaigns to become only the second black woman elected to the U.S. Senate, the California attorney general is trying to chart a middle course on the Democratic Party’s most contentious issue: criminal justice.” — “The Secret to Understanding Kamala Harris,” by Mother Jones’ Jamilah King from the January/February 2018 issue: “Harris has long tried to bridge the tricky divide between social progressivism and the work required as a prosecutor — sometimes more successfully than others.” — “‘Ruthless’: How Kamala Harris Won Her First Race,” by David Siders from Jan. 24, 2019: “An ambitious young prosecutor. A mayor with a machine. And a political crucible for a future presidential candidate.” — “Kamala Harris Makes Her Case,” by The New Yorker’s Dana Goodyear from July 15, 2019: “The Presidential candidate has been criticized as a defender of the status quo. Can she prove that she’s a force for change?” — “Kamala Harris grew up in a mostly white world. Then she went to a black university in a black city,” by WaPo’s Robin Givhan from Sept. 16, 2019: “When anyone challenges her racial identity, the presidential candidate points to her four years at Howard University.” — “How Kamala Harris Went From ‘Female Obama’ to Fifth Place,” by Christopher Cadelago from Nov. 5, 2019: “Interviews with more than 50 people inside and around her campaign … reveal how a candidate with so much promise, range and charisma has slid so far. Many of her dilemmas are self-created.” — “What Kamala Harris’ Law School Years Reveal About Her Politics,” by Jesús Rodríguez in POLITICO Magazine from Aug. 18, 2021: “The future VP arrived at UC Hastings as the daughter of activists and came out as a prosecutor — an evolution that shaped the politician she is today.” — “Exasperation and dysfunction: Inside Kamala Harris’ frustrating start as vice president,” by CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere and Jasmine Wright from Nov. 14, 2021: “Being the first woman, and first woman of color, in national elected office is historic but has also come with outsized scrutiny and no forgiveness for even small errors, as she’ll often point out.” — “In Search of Kamala Harris,” by NYT’s Astead Herndon from Oct. 10, 2023: “After nearly three years, the vice president is still struggling to make the case for herself — and feels she shouldn’t have to.” — “Kamala Harris’s Biographer Says She’s Always Been Underestimated,” by N.Y. Mag’s Benjamin Hart from Wednesday
| | | | 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 | | Kamala Harris called Sonya Massey’s family. Cori Bush’s final ad features Michael Brown’s family slamming Wesley Bell. Jon Stewart urged the VA to help people left out of the PACT Act. Barry Diller’s memoir has disappeared. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to wrest the pro-crypto mantle from Donald Trump. Chris Coons was hurt by the calls for Joe Biden to drop out. TRANSITIONS — Adham Sahloul has been named special assistant and adviser in the office of policy at USAID. He most recently was special assistant in the White House liaison office for the Defense Department, where he also was a Middle East country director. … Paige Ennis is now EVP for external relations at the Bipartisan Policy Center. She most recently was SVP for strategic engagement at the German Marshall Fund, and is an Atlantic Council alum. WEDDING — Kristina Baum, who leads strategic comms at the American Veterinary Medical Association and is a Trump OSTP alum, and Evan Gargiulo, an IT consultant and project manager at CoorWorks, got married July 14 at Shadow Creek in Purcellville, Virginia. They met on Bumble. Pic … Another pic HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rep. Glenn “G.T.” Thompson (R-Pa.) … Sean Savett … Priscilla Painton of Simon & Schuster … Katie Wheelbarger … Alex Wirth of Quorum … Andy Spahn … Paul McLeod … Cecilia Muñoz … Neil King Jr. … Adm. Craig Faller … Johanna Persing … Jeremy Adler … Prime Policy Group’s Stefan Bailey … John Connell of Sen. Todd Young’s (R-Ind.) office … Linda Feldmann … Gaurav Parikh … Jason Lindsay … Bobby Cunningham of the Vogel Group … Live Action’s Lila Rose … Bobby Saparow … Jeremy Deutsch of Capitol Venture … Anna McCormack of Rep. David Rouzer’s (R-N.C.) office … MSNBC’s Denis Horgan … Juan Mejia … Ashley Gonzalez … Andrew Grossman … former Reps. Dave Brat (R-Va.) (6-0) and Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) … Lauren Aratani … former Commerce Secretary Don Evans … CNN’s Susan Durrwachter … former CIA Director John Deutch … Brayden Karpinski … Seth Waugh … Kate Thompson of the Russell Group … Air Force’s Charlie McKell … House Rules’ Susan Phalen … Nicholas Anastácio of National Journal THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here): CNN “State of the Union”: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz … Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) … Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Panel: Scott Jennings, Kristen Soltis Anderson, Jamal Simmons and Kate Bedingfield. FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg … Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). Panel: Olivia Beavers, Mollie Hemingway, Mario Parker and Juan Williams. MSNBC “The Weekend”: DNC Chair Jaime Harrison … DSCC Chair Gary Peters (D-Mich.) … DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) … Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.). CBS “Face the Nation”: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer … Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) … Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) … New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham … Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas). ABC “This Week”: Maryland Gov. Wes Moore … Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker … New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu. Panel: Donna Brazile, Marc Lotter, Asma Khalid and Laura Barrón-López. NewsNation “The Hill Sunday”: Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.). Panel: Bob Cusack, Molly Ball, John McCormack and Ryan Lizza. 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 misstated the name of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. | | | | 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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