News: Slouching towards the debate stage

Thursday, August 8, 2024

Slouching towards the debate stage

Aug 08, 2024

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By Eli Okun

Presented by the Brennan Center for Justice

THE CATCH-UP

FILE - Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump, speaks at a campaign rally, June 6, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri, File)

Donald Trump is due to propose a debate with VP Kamala Harris. | Rick Scuteri, File/AP Photo

“I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and every procrastination, every mistake, every word, all of it.”

So JOAN DIDION wrote about her 28th year in the seminal “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” which Sen. JD VANCE (R-Ohio) tells the Daily Mail’s Rob Crilly he’s reading on the campaign trail. (He likes her shots at hippies.) So President JOE BIDEN discovered in his 82nd year. And now DONALD TRUMP and VP KAMALA HARRIS, sprinting toward the finish line of a topsy-turvy campaign full of promises and evasions, are moving closer to what would be the highest-profile showdown of their contest.

Trump is due to propose a debate with Harris, either at his newly announced Mar-a-Lago news conference at 2 p.m. or in the days to come, WaPo’s Josh Dawsey reports. The former president, having initially proffered a Fox News debate instead of ABC, is now due to suggest going back to ABC or opting for NBC and Univision, people close to Trump tell Dawsey.

The first debate between Biden and Trump, of course, ended up dooming the president’s campaign. Trump’s and Harris’ campaign have sparred in recent days over whether to keep the previously scheduled ABC presidential debate next month. Both ABC and NBC would be interested, per the Post.

If it comes together, a debate — much like this afternoon’s presser — would present a challenge for Trump to tailor his criticisms of Harris. Trump’s campaign wants to emphasize calling Harris an extreme liberal, Alex Isenstadt, Olivia Beavers and Irie Sentner report. (It’s a classic GOP message they planned to slap on Harris and any running mate she picked, no matter whom.) Though Trump and Vance say they want to convince Americans to vote Republican on policy substance, many in the party remain skeptical that Trump will be able to stay away from more personal, tangential attacks, NYT’s Shawn McCreesh writes.

Harris, feeling renewed Democratic energy, is turbocharging this month’s Democratic National Convention with growing demand for parties and event venues, NBC’s Natasha Korecki reports from Chicago. She’s getting fresh support on the campaign trail from prominent Jan. 6 police officers, per NBC’s Ryan Reilly, and a seven-figure ad buy aimed at Latino voters that presents a biographical introduction to her, per NBC’s Monica Alba.

Despite Democrats’ optimism, and Republicans’ scattershot efforts to blast Harris and Minnesota Gov. TIM WALZ in recent days, the race is still extremely tight. The latest Georgia poll from AARP has Harris and Trump tied head to head, or Trump leading by 2 points in an expanded field. And CNBC finds Trump ahead by 2 nationally, powered by lingering voter unhappiness about the economy. In Arizona, HighGround Public Affairs has Harris up by almost 3 points (and Democratic Rep. RUBEN GALLEGO with a big Senate lead).

BREAKING DOWN WALZ — The VP nominee’s personal experience of using in vitro fertilization to conceive his children could play a messaging role on the trail, Megan Messerly reports. In addition to Democrats’ political focus on IVF and abortion rights, his policy record on issues like paid family leave and school lunches would likely dovetail with Harris’ plans for a big White House focus on the “care economy,” The New Republic’s Grace Segers captures. Her choice of Walz as running mate could juice efforts to revive the Build Back Better components that didn’t get through under Biden.

Walz’s selection also places renewed attention on agricultural and farming policy issues for the Harris campaign, Bloomberg’s Kim Chipman and Gerson Freitas Jr. report.

BETTER NEWS ON THE ECONOMY — New jobless claims last week saw their greatest drop in almost a year, which could calm recession fears that spiked after the recent soft jobs report, per Bloomberg. (Caveat: This data can be pretty variable from one week to the next.) The S&P 500 is up just under 2 percent on the news.

Good Thursday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at eokun@politico.com.

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.

7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

U.S. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins greets Clement Attlee, Lord Privy Seal of the British cabinet, on his arrival in New York Oct. 25, 1941 aboard the Yankee clipper. To attend the international labor office conference which opens at Columbia University, New York October 25, 1941, he said he hoped to see President Franklin Roosevelt and make a visit to Canada. (AP Photo)

Plans for a new national monument would honor former Labor Secretary Frances Perkins. | AP Photo

1. MONUMENTAL NEWS: “Few national monuments honor women. Biden will create this new one,” by WaPo’s Maxine Joselow: “Biden plans to create a national monument in Maine honoring FRANCES PERKINS, the first female Cabinet secretary and a fierce advocate for workers’ rights … Biden is expected to sign a proclamation designating Perkins’s family home in Newcastle, Maine, as part of the National Park System, aiming to recognize the legacy of a trailblazing woman while bolstering his own legacy before he leaves office.”

2. BATTLE FOR THE SENATE: In Montana, where we’ve had a drought of nonpartisan polling for months, a new Emerson/The Hill survey finds Republican TIM SHEEHY moving into a 2-point lead over Democratic Sen. JON TESTER, per Julia Mueller. If that holds, barring a surprise somewhere else on the map, a Tester loss would basically be the whole ballgame for Republicans flipping the Senate.

3. TIKTOK ON THE CLOCK: “Inside Trump’s TikTok team: Courting fans of an app he tried to ban,” by WaPo’s Drew Harwell and Josh Dawsey: “His success on an app beloved by Generation Z has surprised even his own campaign team … Trump’s team now regards TikTok as a secret weapon for reaching young voters. With less than 100 days until the election, they’re racing to double down on a strategy that will play up Trump as — in the words of one aide — ‘the biggest celebrity entertainer … on the planet.’ … One of the goals is to show potential voters a lighter, more charming side of Trump, instead of the candidate they have seen screaming, name-calling or appearing for criminal mug shots.”

4. NOTABLE QUOTABLE: Rep. NANCY PELOSI (D-Calif.), who is making new headlines daily with interviews knifing the Biden campaign team, tells The New Yorker's David Remnick that “I’ve never been that impressed with his political operation.” Will her relationship with Biden survive? “I hope so,” Pelosi says. “I pray so. I cry so.”

Breaking News Briefing: Where Tim Walz Stands on the Issues — The Democratic ticket is set now that Vice President Kamala Harris has named Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. Join POLITICO Pro on Friday Aug. 9 for a detailed discussion with specialist reporters on what Walz's track record says about the policies he and Harris will embrace in the final stretch of the 2024 presidential campaign. Register for the Briefing

5. IMMIGRATION FILES: “Many immigrant spouses without legal status left out of Biden’s plan despite deep U.S. ties,” by the L.A. Times’ Andrea Castillo: “Biden’s proposal leaves out many people who immigration advocates say are equally deserving of protection, but fall short of the proposed criteria. That includes spouses who followed the current rules and voluntarily left the country to apply for reentry, and are now outside the U.S. … Other immigrants would be barred from participating in Biden’s plan due to decades-old border offenses or because they did not pass a U.S. consular vetting process. Advocates for such families estimate that more than 1 million people married to U.S. citizens are unable to access the pathway to citizenship.”

6. MUSK READ: A new Center for Countering Digital Hate report concludes that ELON MUSK himself has posted election misinformation or misleading claims on X 50 times just in 2024, per NBC’s David Ingram. None of them had a “Community Note” from X’s purported fact-checking system, and the posts collectively had 1.2 billion impressions.

7. WHERE THE PACT ACT FALLS SHORT: “More than 385,000 Camp Lejeune contamination claims have been filed. So far, the US government has offered to pay 114 of them,” by CNN’s Brenda Goodman: “The Camp Lejeune Justice Act gave people who were exposed to the contamination on the North Carolina base a window of two years to file a claim against the federal government. That window closes Saturday. The idea was to set up a system to swiftly review cases and compensate people who could prove their connection to the base and specific harm to their health, but advocates for Camp Lejeune victims say it hasn’t worked out that way.”

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PLAYBOOKERS

Ben LaBolt is adding senior adviser to his title as Anita Dunn departs the White House.

JB Pritzker wants to see Lil Wayne and the Smashing Pumpkins.

IN MEMORIAM — “Randy Kehler, peace activist who inspired Daniel Ellsberg, dies at 80,” by WaPo’s Harrison Smith: “While preparing to go to jail for protesting the draft, he delivered a speech that inspired Ellsberg to copy and share the Pentagon Papers.”

MEDIA MOVE — Oliver Darcy is launching his own media news site, Status, and leaving his role as the writer of CNN’s Reliable Sources, as he tells NYT’s Michael Grynbaum. His independent, subscription-based venture will launch next week, while CNN will pause Reliable Sources.

TRANSITION — Julie Dingley is joining U.S. Digital Response as COO. She most recently was budget director for Seattle, and is a White House OMB alum.

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