| | | | |  | | By Garrett Ross | Presented by Zelle® | |  | THE CATCH-UP | | |  Some aides are worried that Donald Trump's campaign approach is putting his chances in the swing states at risk. | Alex Brandon/AP | FRENEMY AT THE GATES — In an appearance on “Fox & Friends” this morning, DONALD TRUMP rolled out his usual jabs at NIKKI HALEY, even as there are talks for the former South Carolina governor to join him on the campaign trail in the final weeks. Asked whether he would call Haley to join him, Trump said he’ll “do what I have to do,” before starting in on his former UN ambassador. “Nikki Haley and I fought and I beat her by 50, 60, 90 points. I beat her in her own state by numbers no one has ever been beaten by. I beat Nikki badly. … I like Nikki. Nikki I don’t think should have done what she did,” he said, then quickly turning his attention and adoration to ELON MUSK. Watch the full interview To wit, those close to Trump are privately worried that the former president is returning to his usual ways in the final days of the campaign, concerned that his “impetuousness and scattershot style on the campaign trail needlessly risk victory in battleground states where the margin for error is increasingly narrow,” NYT’s Michael Bender reports. Asked about his standing with women, Trump claimed that he’s not worried about that, though seemed to admit at least one glaring weakness: “You have one issue, you have the issue of abortion,” Trump said. “Without abortion, women love me.” Trump also said this morning that he enlisted some help from the network to craft his speech for the annual Al Smith Dinner in New York last night. “Couple of people from Fox, actually, I shouldn’t say that, but they wrote some jokes,” Trump said. Bet on it: On the crypto-based Polymarket, where users can bet on the outcome of the election, Trump’s chance of victory has recently skyrocketed. While Trump’s supporters have touted the shift as a new sign that the race is trending toward their candidate, “the surge might be a mirage manufactured by a group of four Polymarket accounts that have collectively pumped about $30 million of crypto into bets that Trump will win,” WSJ’s Alexander Osipovich reports. MOTOWN DISPATCH — KAMALA HARRIS’ campaign knows how important Michigan will be in deciding the election. That’s why she descended on Detroit this week to push her vision to energize Black voters who will be critical to deciding which way the Great Lakes State will swing. Harris came armed with a “litany of new policy proposals tailored to them and answered their questions during a town hall hosted by celebrity radio personality CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD,” but the push “didn’t seem to register with Detroiters outside the carefully stage-managed campaign bubble,” Brakkton Booker reports. “That Harris, even after her sixth trip to the state since launching her White House run this summer, is still struggling to connect with this key constituency underscores the dual challenges she faces here in the final sprint to Election Day. While she needs Detroit’s majority Black electorate to turn out in hopes of running up the margins in the state, polls indicate Harris’ standing among Black men is flagging compared to what JOE BIDEN received four years ago.” Related read: “How Is the Economy for Black Voters? A Complex Question Takes Center Stage,” by NYT’s Jordyn Holman and Jeanna Smialek: “Donald J. Trump has been talking up his economic record for Black voters. The legacy of the last eight years is complicated.” Happy Friday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at gross@politico.com.
| | | | A message from Zelle®: 99.95% of Zelle® transactions in 2023 were completed without any report of fraud or scams. Learn more. | | | CAMPAIGN LATEST …
- Jump-ball in Michigan: An NRCC poll has the race to replace retiring Rep. DAN KILDEE (D-Mich.) as a coin flip: Republican PAUL JUNGE leads Democrat KRISTEN MCDONALD RIVET 41% to 40%, with 13% undecided and third-party candidates holding 6 percentage points. More from Ally Mutnick
AFTERNOON READS …
- “How Tech Billionaires Became the G.O.P.’s New Donor Class,” by NYT’s Jonathan Mahler, Ryan Mac and Teddy Schleifer: “They are the opposite of private, dark-money donors, making a public show of their support for Trump and even sometimes announcing their donations on social media. It’s an ambitious and highly motivated group, powered by self-interest and self-regard and unencumbered by self-doubt.”
- “How Republican Billionaires Learned to Love Trump Again,” by The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser: “The former President has been fighting to win back his wealthiest donors, while actively courting new ones — what do they expect to get in return?”
| | | 7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW | | | |  The oil and gas industry is preparing for Trump's return to the White House. | Evan Vucci/AP | 1. WHAT’S AT STAKE: The American Exploration and Production Council, an influential oil and gas industry group, has “drafted detailed plans for dismantling landmark Biden administration climate rules after the presidential election,” WaPo’s Evan Halper and Josh Dawsey report. The documents from the group, whose members were targeted for donations to Trump’s campaign, “amount to a monumental rollback of some of the most aggressive federal tools to cut emissions” and “reveal a comprehensive industry effort to reverse climate initiatives advanced during nearly four years of Democratic leadership. At the same time, the documents contain confidential data showing that industry’s voluntary initiatives to cut emissions have fallen short.” 2. STRANGE FRIDGE-FELLOWS: Since teaming up with ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. after the long-shot independent bowed out of the presidential race, Trump has “fully embraced Kennedy’s ambition to wage war on chronic disease,” even adopting RFK’s “Make America Healthy Again” slogan as he seeks to shore up as much support from Kennedy’s fans as he can, WSJ’s Liz Essley Whyte, Kristina Peterson and Natalie Andrews write . “Trump, a fan of hamburgers from McDonald’s, has picked up Kennedy’s goal to take on ultra-processed food, environmental toxins and a healthcare system Kennedy argues is more designed to treat illnesses than prevent them.” 3. MIDDLE EAST LATEST: In light of the death of Hamas leader YAHYA SINWAR , officials “pushed to take advantage of the unexpected killing as a chance to restart moribund talks for a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages,” WaPo’s Steve Hendrix and Claire Parker report from Jerusalem. Israeli PM BENJAMIN NETANYAHU is “set to convene an emergency meeting of security officials Friday to discuss restarting negotiations that have been brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.” Meanwhile, in Gaza “it remained far from clear who would represent Hamas if talks reconvene.” How it happened: “After a Yearlong Hunt, Sinwar’s Killing Came Down to Chance,” by WSJ’s Anat Peled, Dov Lieber, Carrie Keller-Lynn and Summer Said: “At times they came tantalizingly close, but he was always one step ahead. At one point, soldiers arrived in an underground compound just moments after Sinwar had fled, with one senior officer saying Sinwar had left behind a cup of coffee that was still hot. But they could never catch the man — until members of Israel’s Battalion 450, which trains infantry commanders, stumbled upon him.” Reality check: “‘I Foresee a Very Long Insurgency by Hamas,’” by Michael Hirsh for POLITICO Magazine: “Former U.S. Ambassador RYAN CROCKER says what he most fears is Israeli overconfidence following the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.”
| | | | A message from Zelle®:   Pay it safe with Zelle®. https://www.zellepay.com/safety-education | | | 4. WAR IN UKRAINE: South Korean intelligence indicates that North Korea has “dispatched troops to support Russia’s war against Ukraine. If confirmed, the move would bring a third country into the war and intensify a standoff between North Korea and the West,” AP’s Hyung-jin Kim and Kim Tong-hyung report. Dialing back the lens, the AP also notes that Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN has ramped up his saber-rattling this year, “relying on those thousands of warheads and hundreds of missiles as an enormous doomsday machine to offset NATO’s massive edge in conventional weapons to discourage what he sees as threats to Russia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Related read: “Right-wing influencers hyped anti-Ukraine videos made by a TV producer also funded by Russian media,” by AP’s Alan Suderman and Garance Burke 5. GEORGIA ON MY MIND: In a down-ballot Georgia matchup, Democrat ASHWIN RAMASWAMI is running for a state Senate seat against incumbent SHAWN STILL , who was one of the fake electors indicted alongside Trump in the state last year on election interference charges. The 25-year-old Ramaswami’s “audacious Gen-Z challenge” to the 52-year-old Still “may prove to be a long shot in Senate District 48, which was drawn to tilt Republican,” NYT’s Richard Fausset reports from Johns Creek, Georgia . “But it will serve as a test of Democrats’ argument that anyone who helped try to change the 2020 election result is unfit for office. The race will also test the strength, and political proclivities, of the growing Indian American community in the populous suburbs north of Atlanta.” 6. TWO ECONOMIC AMERICAS: “Wealthier Americans are driving retail spending and powering US economy,” by AP’s Christopher Rugaber: “It’s a trend that has surprised many: Why, despite being squeezed by high prices, have Americans kept spending at retail stores and restaurants at a robust pace? One key reason is a relatively simple one: Wealthier consumers, boosted by strong gains in income, home equity and stock market wealth, have increasingly driven the spending. That trend, documented by Federal Reserve research, represents something of a shift from the pre-pandemic period. And it suggests that consumer spending, the primary driver of the U.S. economy, could help sustain healthy growth this year and next.” 7. HACK JOB: “The world’s largest internet archive is under siege — and fighting back,” by WaPo’s Daniel Wu: “Hackers struck the Internet Archive last week, leaking the information of millions of users and defacing it with a message taunting the nonprofit’s website for running on a shoestring budget. To prevent further leaks, the Internet Archive’s team took the site, including its popular Wayback Machine, offline. It’s the first time in its almost 30-year history that it has suffered an outage of longer than a few hours, founder BREWSTER KAHLE told The Washington Post. Most of the site remains offline a week later.”
| | PLAYBOOKERS | | Dan Osborn is fired up. OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED at the National Academy of Social Insurance’s Robert M. Ball Award gala at the Kennedy Center last night, honoring Bill Arnone, Bill Rodgers and Marty Ford: Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley, Kilolo Kijakazi, Doug Holtz-Eakin, Indi Dutta-Gupta, Deb Whitman, Bob Blancato, Nancy Altman, Bob Greenstein, Earl Pomeroy, Heidi Hartmann, Margaret Simms, Sarah Wartell, Chantel Sheaks, David Camp, Kathleen Romig, Max Ghenis, Cortney Sanders, Chantel Boyens, Dave Wittenburg, Joel Eskovitz, Galen Carey, Tyler Bond, Jeanne Morin, Sabrina Davis, Marissa Ditkowsky, Henry Aaron and Rebecca Vallas. — SPOTTED at the ChIPs 2025 Global Summit in D.C. held at the Washington Hilton this week: Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Kara Swisher, Kathi Vidal, Shira Perlmutter, Victoria Espinel, Carolyn Herzog and Eleanor Lacey. TRANSITION — Chris Dibari now works on climate and energy at the NSC. He most recently was senior duty officer at the White House Situation Room. … Alicia Phillips Mandaville is now COO of Anera. She most recently was VP for policy and evaluation at the Millenium Challenge Corporation. WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Julia Ioffe, founding partner and Washington correspondent at Puck, earlier this week welcomed a baby boy. Instapic 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. | | | | 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 politics and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |
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