News: Trump’s debate challenge: Himself

Saturday, September 7, 2024

Trump’s debate challenge: Himself

Sep 07, 2024

By Rachael Bade, Ryan Lizza and Eugene Daniels

Presented by

With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine

DRIVING THE DAY

MUSK READ — “Donald Trump could turn Elon Musk into an American oligarch,” by Liz Crampton, Lara Korte, Derek Robertson and Brendan Bordelon

Donald Trump is pictured.

Donald Trump is entering the debate with a wave of good news. But can he stay disciplined? | Gerald Herbert/AP

WILL TRUMP TAKE THE DE-BAIT? — After a six-week stretch where everything seemed to break VP KAMALA HARRIS’ way, DONALD TRUMP has been on something of a lucky streak over the past few days.

He successfully avoided a pre-election sentencing, keeping his New York fraud conviction off the top of voters’ minds until after the election. Judge JUAN MERCHAN’s ruling yesterday capped off an unlikely “inside straight” for his legal team,as our colleagues Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein write.

Courts in Michigan and North Carolina removed ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. from November ballots in those states — a “yuge” benefit, as Trump might say, to the ex-president in two key battlegrounds.

Hopes are fading for a cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel, all but ensuring the war in Gaza will continue to divide Democrats through Election Day, while yesterday’s soft jobs numbers gave Trump a fresh opening on the GOP’s best issue.

And while Harris appears to have established a small national polling lead, Trump is holding his own in key swing states — including all-important Pennsylvania.

But — and it’s a big but — Tuesday is coming.

With just days until his highly anticipated debate showdown with Harris, some Republicans are fretting that an overconfident Trump will step in it, as our colleagues Natalie Allison, Lisa Kashinsky, Kimberly Leonard and Alex Isenstadt write this morning. They’ve been urging Trump for weeks to focus on policy, not personality, when facing off with Harris.

Let’s face reality here: He’s just not interested. After podcaster LEX FRIDMAN recently prodded him to focus on a “positive vision of the future,” Trump rejected the suggestion entirely.

“I think you have to criticize,” he said. “I think they’re nasty.”

It doesn’t mean the GOP won’t keep trying to change his mind. Sen. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.) recently wrote in an op-ed that “the road to the White House runs through a vigorous policy debate, not an exchange of barbs” and insisted that “every day that the candidates trade insults is a good day for [Harris] because it’s one less day that she has to defend the failures of the Biden-Harris administration.”

“I think — I pray — he can be disciplined,” said TRICIA McLAUGHLIN, one of several Republican strategists who is worried about personal attacks on Harris backfiring, to our colleagues.

Trump’s team has made a point of emphasizing to him how well he did in the June 27 debate against JOE BIDEN. He did indeed show unusual restraint, according to the Trump sliding scale, sitting back and letting Biden bury himself with his own halting performance and mental lapses.

But facing off against Harris, a woman and former prosecutor who is in full control of her faculties, stands to be an entirely different challenge.

Indeed, Trump’s allies have “urged him to be ‘happy Trump’ in the debate rather than ‘mean, bully Trump,’” the NYT’s Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman, Katie Rogers and Reid J. Epstein write this morning. That could be difficult, given that he often talks about Harris in misogynistic terms in private, they write.

In fact, the NYT team reports, Trump appears consumed with avoiding a reprise of Harris’ 2020 debate with MIKE PENCE, where she “cut off his attempted interruption by saying, ‘I’m speaking.’

“Referring to that exchange, Mr. Trump has privately told associates, ‘I’m not going to let her do to me what she did to Mike,’” they write.

One thing’s for sure: The upcoming debate is absolutely on Trump’s mind — though not perhaps focused on it in precisely the way that Republica would like. This morning at 7 a.m., he railed on Truth Social about the use of “boxes and artificial lifts” at the debate — revealing how concerned he seems to be about how he’ll appear next to the 5-foot-4 Harris.

“It would be a form of cheating, and the Democrats cheat enough,” he wrote.

As for Harris, she’s holed up in a downtown Pittsburgh hotel with staff led by longtime confidantes KAREN DUNN and ROHINI KOSOGLU, the NYT writes: “There’s a stage and replica TV lighting and an adviser [PHILIPPE REINES] in full LEE STRASBERG method-acting mode, not just playing [Trump] but inhabiting him, wearing a boxy suit and a long tie.”

The point of all the prep? “Bringing out Mr. Trump’s most self-destructive instincts is a priority for Ms. Harris, as is coming across as coolheaded and presidential,” they write.

Can Trump manage to resist?

Good Saturday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.

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SPEAKING OF BAIT — Harris yesterday snagged the frankly mind-blowing endorsement of former VP DICK CHENEY, following his daughter LIZ CHENEY in going public with his November vote.

Trump responded on Truth Social by calling the elder Cheney “an irrelevant RINO” and “the King of Endless, Nonsensical Wars, wasting Lives and Trillions of Dollars, just like Comrade Kamala Harris,” throwing in his own pardon of former top Cheney aide SCOOTER LIBBY for good measure.

As for Liz? “What Liz Cheney did with the Unselect Committee of Political Losers is unthinkable,” he wrote, referring to the House Jan. 6 committee, adding that “Cheney and the others should be prosecuted for what they did, but Comrade Kamala is even worse!”

CROWD CONTROL — “Trump Claims Harris’s Rallies Are Smaller. We Counted,” by NYT’s Malika Khurana, Kalina Borkiewicz, Elena Shao, Bora Erden, Ashley Wu and Bedel Saget: “We attended six rallies — every campaign event that the candidates held within a three-week period in August — across six states, taking photographs and capturing video and 360-degree footage, to analyze which claims on crowd sizes hold weight.

“The analysis found that, despite Mr. Trump’s claims, both candidates draw comparably big audiences. On a Friday night, Mr. Trump drew 11,500 people to the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Ariz. … On a Tuesday night during the weeklong Democratic National Convention in late August, Ms. Harris drew 12,800 to a campaign event at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wis.”

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT — “California state senator’s former staffer sues lawmaker for alleged sexual harassment,” by Lara Korte

A message from Better Medicare Alliance:

Seniors can’t afford policies that make their health care more expensive. They are counting on Washington to protect Medicare Advantage. Learn more.

WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY

At the White House

Biden has nothing on his public schedule.

Harris is in Pittsburgh, where she will receive briefings and conduct internal meetings with staff.

On the trail

Trump will be in Mosinee, Wisconsin, for a rally at the Central Wisconsin Airport.

Minnesota Gov. TIM WALZ will deliver the keynote address at the Human Rights Campaign Annual National Dinner in D.C.

PLAYBOOK READS

9 THINGS THAT STUCK WITH US

Mike Johnson points his pen as he speaks at a podium.

Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled House Republicans' plan to address the government funding fight. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

1. SPENDING SHOWDOWN: House Republicans rolled out their strategy for the looming high-stakes government funding fight, teeing up a standoff with Senate Dems ahead of the Oct. 1 shutdown deadline. Our ace Hill colleagues Jordain Carney, Caitlin Emma and Jennifer Scholtes have the details: The stopgap funding bill would fund the government at largely current levels through March 28. But the version of the CR released yesterday includes a GOP proposal to require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections — a measure that Trump insisted on but is a non-starter for Senate Democrats.

“The stopgap also includes $10 billion to boost FEMA’s disaster aid fund, depleted after hurricanes in Texas and Florida, along with West Coast wildfires and severe storms across the Midwest and Northeast. Republicans also included nearly $2 billion for Navy submarines, a total requested by the White House.” Read the bill text

Speaker MIKE JOHNSON wants to put the bill on the floor on Wednesday in an effort to squeeze Democrats on non-citizen voting. He called the bill rollout “a critically important step” for House Republicans, saying in a statement that Congress “has a responsibility” to both fund the government and “ensure that only American citizens can decide American elections.”

Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER and Appropriations Chair PATTY MURRAY (D-Wash) said in turn that Johnson was “wasting precious time catering to the hard MAGA right” with his proposal: “If Speaker Johnson drives House Republicans down this highly partisan path, the odds of a shutdown go way up, and Americans will know that the responsibility of a shutdown will be on the House Republicans’ hands.”

Related read: “Speaker Mike Johnson Survived the Spring. Now Comes the Fall,” by WSJ’s Natalie Andrews

2. PROBE PUSHES ON: House Republicans are “expanding their investigation of the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan,” WaPo’s Dan Lamothe and Abigail Hauslohner report, “pursuing additional witness testimony as former president Donald Trump attempts to make the war’s deadly endgame a central issue with the election now weeks away.

“The House Foreign Affairs Committee’s GOP majority has been in contact with at least three senior military officers who were in Kabul in August 2021 and directly involved in the hastily organized evacuation of tens of thousands of people whose safety was in jeopardy when the Afghan government collapsed.” The committee also “has intensified efforts to speak with at least two key administration figures: Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN, who was subpoenaed by the committee this week, and White House national security adviser JAKE SULLIVAN.”

3. THE NEW NORMAL: Unfriendly foreign governments appear to be ramping up their efforts to interfere in American politics from the presidential to the local state level in what seems to have become an “inescapable part of the U.S. election system” after a shock to the system in 2016, Hailey Fuchs and Josh Gerstein report. “National security experts said the Biden administration has been far more aggressive than in previous recent cycles. But officials continue to grapple with questions of how to hold bad actors accountable, deter future efforts and preserve trust in a system in which both foreign and domestic operatives are actively attempting to sow distrust.”

4. GREAT MINDS: Top officials in the Biden administration “have been crafting a proposal to create a sovereign wealth fund that would allow the US to invest in national security interests including technology, energy, and critical links in the supply chain,” Bloomberg’s Josh Wingrove reports. “The behind-the-scenes work by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his deputy, DALEEP SINGH, mirrors — at least in spirit — a proposal floated Thursday by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who called for a government-owned investment fund to finance ‘great national endeavors’ during a speech to the Economic Club of New York.”

5. KNOWING BRIAN NELSON: “Meet Kamala Harris’s ‘Problem-Solver-in-Chief,’” by WSJ’s Tarini Parti and Andrew Restuccia: “A pragmatist who isn’t seen by people who know him as overtly ideological, Nelson takes a similar approach to governing as Harris, one that portends a shift from the lofty, New Deal-style policy prescriptions proposed by Biden to a more consensus-oriented, incremental strategy. … Harris, who had been in Washington for only four years before she became vice president, doesn’t have a deep bench of longtime aides, making Nelson, 47 years old, perhaps the most influential of the small group of advisers shaping her domestic and foreign policy agenda.”

6. BEYOND PROJECT 2025: Though the Trump campaign has distanced and somewhat sidelined the Heritage Foundation’s marquee Project 2025 policy-shaping effort, Heritage “has also made its mark with an aggressive effort to shape public opinion, seeding falsehoods about the integrity of the 2024 election across social media and conservative news outlets,” NYT’s Ken Bensinger and Richard Fausset report. “At the center of that effort is the Oversight Project, an arm of Heritage that conducts what it describes as investigations into immigration policy, among other topics. Borrowing from covert tactics used by the group Project Veritas, the Oversight Project has published videos about the supposed threat of migrant voting in shelters on the Texas border, in New York City and in North Carolina.”

7. ABORTION ON THE BALLOT: “Missouri judge rules against abortion rights measure, putting November vote in doubt,” by the Kansas City Star’s Jonathan Shorman and Kacen Bayless: “Cole County Circuit Judge CHRISTOPHER LIMBAUGH said the initiative petition submitted to overturn the state’s abortion ban and enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution was insufficient because ANNA FITZ-JAMES, the individual who submitted the petition didn’t comply with state law. The decision, which came hours after a bench trial, is virtually certain to be appealed and could end up in front of the Missouri Supreme Court in a matter of days.”

8. FOR YOUR RADAR: “U.S. Tells Allies Iran Has Sent Ballistic Missiles to Russia,” by WSJ’s Laurence Norman in Berlin and Michael Gordon and Alexander Ward in Washington: “Iran has sent short-range ballistic missiles to Russia, according to U.S. and European officials, a move that gives Moscow another potent military tool in its war against Ukraine and follows stern Western warnings not to provide those arms to Moscow. The development comes as Russia has stepped up its missile attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, killing dozens of civilians in recent days.”

9. ON THE GRAM: Telegram, the social messaging platform that recently came under scrutiny because of its founder, has “become a global sewer of criminal activity, disinformation, child sexual abuse material, terrorism and racist incitement, according to a four-month investigation by The New York Times that analyzed more than 3.2 million Telegram messages from over 16,000 channels,” NYT’s Paul Mozur, Adam Satariano, Aaron Krolik and Steven Lee Myers report. “The company, which offers features that enable criminals, terrorists and grifters to organize at scale and to sidestep scrutiny from the authorities, has looked the other way as illegal and extremist activities have flourished openly on the app.”

Related read: “How Telegram Became Criminals’ Favorite Marketplace,” by WSJ’s Angus Berwick and Ben Foldy

A message from Better Medicare Alliance:

Medicare Advantage is affordable health care for seniors, and they want Washington to protect it.

CLICKER — “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker — 17 funnies

Political cartoon

GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Ryan Lizza:

— “The Canary,” by Michael Lewis for WaPo: “Who really is our government? What is it made of? And what is at stake when politicians say they want to expand or dismantle it? To find out, we set seven stellar writers loose on the federal bureaucracy.”

— “Antony Blinken Dragged US Diplomacy Into the 21st Century. Even He’s Surprised by the Results,” by Wired’s Garrett Graff: “Two major wars. A rising China. Hackers everywhere. He’s the US secretary of state, and he says he’s here to help.”

— “Postcard from Washington: the surprising renaissance of the ‘mobile lounge,’” by FT’s Tom Vanderbilt: “Designed at the dawn of the jet age, Dulles International’s ageing fleet of passenger shuttles looks set for a new lease of life.”

— “When a Trailblazing Suffragist and a Crusading Prosecutor Teamed Up to Expose an Election Conspiracy,” by Sasha Issenberg for Smithsonian Magazine: “An unlikely duo exposed political corruption in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1914—and set a new precedent for fair voting across the country.”

— “How Machines Learned to Discover Drugs,” by The New Yorker’s Dhruv Khullar: “The A.I. revolution is coming to a pharmacy near you.”

— “The shelter and the storm,” by WaPo’s Ruby Cramer: “What happened when the nation’s immigration crisis came to a small town in Massachusetts.”

— “Justice Is Beside the Point in America’s Immigration Courts,” by Bloomberg’s Monte Reel and Sinduja Rangarajan: “The system for deciding asylum cases is failing, and not only because it’s overwhelmed. Something drastic will have to be done to fix a process that’s flawed at its very core.”

— “Are Young Voters Ready to Elect the Next President? Not Yet, Says Generation Dissatisfied,” by Glamour’s Rachel Janfaza: “Despite Gen Z’s loud political activism on social media, just 56% of young women voters are registered and intend to vote this year.”

— “Inside the Dangerous, Secretive World of Extreme Fishing,” by Tyler Austin Harper for The Atlantic: “Why I swim out into rough seas 80 nights a year to hunt for striped bass.”

— “A cool flame: how Gaia theory was born out of a secret love affair,” by The Guardian’s Jonathan Watts: “Scientist James Lovelock gave humanity new ways to think about our home planet – but some of his biggest ideas were the fruit of a passionate collaboration.”

PLAYBOOKERS

JD Vance’s charity in Ohio is still facing an uncertain future.

Jill Biden popped out at the Ralph Lauren NYFW show in the Hamptons.

Alan Dershowitz really didn’t like the Democratic National Convention.

OUT AND ABOUT — Dan Ronayne, SVP of Touchdown Strategies, celebrated his birthday in style at the Tune Inn with family and close friends over many plates of bacon last night. SPOTTED: Tom Williams, Robb Harleston, Jeff Sadosky, Brian Wash, Reese Gorman, John Ronayne and James Davis.

MEDIA MOVE — Nancy Vu is joining BGOV as a health policy reporter. She previously was a reporter at the Washington Examiner and is a POLITICO alum.

TRANSITION — Allison Dembeck is joining Save the Children U.S. as head of policy. She previously was VP of education and labor advocacy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and executive director of Women Taking the Lead.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Reuben Brigety … Shawn McCreesh … Bloomberg’s Zoe Tillman … Peggy Noonan … Meridian International Center’s Stuart Holliday … Joe Klein … Chris Padilla … WaPo’s Michael Duffy and Bill O’Leary … Meredith Raimondi of the National Council of Urban Indian Health … Robert Blizzard of UpONE Insights … Jason Oxman of the Information Technology Industry Council … Sam Iacobellis … CBS’ Melissa Quinn … Erin Mendelsohn of Vertex Pharmaceuticals … Elizabeth Fox … NEA’s Brandon Rettke … Craig Higgins of House Appropriations … Matthew Grill … Eric Kanter of Rep. Jared Golden’s (D-Maine) office … Caroline Chambers … Johan Propst of Rep. Brad Sherman’s (D-Calif.) office … MSNBC’s Stefanie Cargill … Maralee Schwartz … Emerson Collective’s Robin Reck … VOA’s John Walker … Mia Saponara … Nick Ciarlante … Jeff Schrade … Kate Andersen Brower … Gayle Tzemach Lemmon … Anthony Tata … former Rep. Ryan Costello (R-Pa.) … CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez … Nathaniel Reed … Madeline Meeker of Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) office … POLITICO’s Zoya Sheftalovich … Sawyer Hackett … John Catsimatidis

THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here):

ABC “This Week”: Liz Cheney … Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Politics panel: Donna Brazile and Chris Christie. Panel: Martha Raddatz, Mary Bruce and Rachel Scott.

CBS “Face the Nation”: Nikki Haley … North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper … Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) … Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.).

FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) … Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) … Debate preview panel: Jim Messina and Brett O’Donnell. Panel: Guy Benson, Mary Katharine Ham, Susan Page and Juan Williams.

NBC “Meet the Press”: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) … North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum … Steve Kornacki. Panel: Yamiche Alcindor, Ashley Etienne, Sara Fagen and Lauren Mayk.

CNN “Inside Politics Sunday”: Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) … Dave McCormick. Panel: Jeff Zeleny, Joanna Coles, Anna Palmer and Mario Parker. Polling panel: Kristen Soltis Anderson and Margie Omero.

Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures”: Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) … Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-Texas) … Ben Carson … Alina Habba … Charly Arnolt.

MSNBC “PoliticsNation”: Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) … North Carolina AG Josh Stein … DNC Chair Jaime Harrison.

NewsNation “The Hill Sunday”: RNC co-chair Lara Trump … Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) … Mike Rogers. Panel: George Will, Molly Ball, Domenico Montanaro and Kellie Meyer.

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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 included an incorrect title for Zach Gillan.

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For seniors, every dollar counts — especially when it comes to the high cost of health care.

Medicare Advantage is the affordable health care choice for more than 33 million seniors, including more low-income Americans and minorities than Fee-For-Service Medicare.

Seniors are counting on their elected representatives to stand up for Medicare Advantage. When Washington plays politics with Medicare, seniors pay the price. Learn more.