| | | | |  | | By Lauren Egan, Daniel Lippman, Eli Stokols and Ben Johansen | Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren For the past few years, publishers have glumly stared at the political landscape, seeing very little opportunity to make money on political books chronicling an aging JOE BIDEN or his looming rematch with DONALD TRUMP. But after a whirlwind month in politics — a career-ending presidential debate performance, an assassination attempt and a last-minute change to the top of the Democratic ticket — book industry executives are starting to see more opportunity in this election cycle. “The watercooler talk for at least a year has been about romantasy titles,” said one publisher (more specifically, they said, “books about fairies having sex” are in high demand). “Then, starting this week, the watercooler talk is about politics.” A handful of book projects tied to the 2024 election have been in the works for months — The Washington Post’s JOSH DAWSEY, ISAAC ARNSDORF and TYLER PAGER are working on a book on the election as well as Trump’s legal troubles; POLITICO’s RYAN LIZZA and New York Magazine’s OLIVIA NUZZI are also writing a book about the election. And we’ve heard of a few others in the works that have not been announced publicly. Publishers and agents who spoke with West Wing Playbook said that, for a while, it seemed like the book market was already over-saturated, given the relatively low demand. Until the CNN debate. “People were so burnt out on Trump versus Biden, and this changes everything,” said a second publisher, who, like others that spoke with West Wing Playbook, was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. “I’m having lots of conversations with authors about how we could catch this wave.” There are already some public signs of a shift in the market. Axios’ (and West Wing Playbook alum) ALEX THOMPSON said he sent out a fresh book proposal last week and has been meeting with publishers this week. And after telling POLITICO last year that they were done with Biden books, NBC News’ JONATHAN ALLEN and The Hill’s AMIE PARNES announced this week that they’d struck a deal to write their third campaign book. “We weren’t going to do a book this year, and then the last month happened,” the writing duo said in a statement. “There’s been no election cycle in our lifetimes that comes close to it in terms of how much has happened, how dramatic it’s been. And so I think there’s going to be a lot of ink spilled in books,” said KEITH URBAHN, founding partner at the D.C.-area literary agency Javelin, adding that the firm had several “new projects” in the works following the past month’s events. Book publishers and agents said that part of the fresh interest in the 2024 election is the desire to get under the hood of Biden’s decision to drop out of the race — from the behind-the-scenes reaction from top aides and family members to his debate performance, to colorful descriptions of what those final few hours of his candidacy looked like as he hunkered down at his Delaware beach house. Other publishers said that there would also be a lot of interest in books that provided an inside look at the Secret Service’s failure to prevent the assassination attempt on Trump. And then there’s the Vice President KAMALA HARRIS factor. Although Harris has been on the national political scene for years now, people in the publishing industry said she is relatively unknown compared to Biden and Trump. Since Biden took office, books about his fairly drama-free presidency have not sold well. Readers did not feel like they had anything left to learn about the 81-year-old who’d been in public office for decades. But with Harris — whether she wins or loses the general election — there’s a lot more to excavate. The spike in sales of JD VANCE’s 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” following his vice presidential nomination was a promising sign to many in the industry that there was an interest in getting to know new political figures after the same two men have dominated much of the discourse in recent years. “Everyone loves a new character,” said a book agent. MESSAGE US — Are you SARAH J. MAAS? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
| | | | 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. | | | | | | | | | Which president had a dog named GRITS? (Answer at bottom.)
| | THE BIBI EFFECT: After Israeli Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU spoke in front of a joint session of Congress Wednesday, anti-Israel protesters gathered in front of Union Station, where they spray painted surrounding statues, burned American flags and replaced the U.S. flags in front of the station with a Palestinian flag. Following a steady group of Republican lawmakers placing the blame at Vice President Harris’ shoes — not as much at President Biden’s — the vice president came out with a statement Thursday morning condemning the protesters. “Yesterday, at Union Station in Washington, D.C. we saw despicable acts by unpatriotic protestors and dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric,” Harris wrote in a statement. “I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas … I condemn the burning of the American flag. That flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. It should never be desecrated in that way.” The statement came before Harris sat down with the Israeli leader Thursday evening. NEW NYT/SIENA DROPPED: In a New York Times/Siena College poll taken after Biden’s decision to step aside, Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are locked in a tight race. Among likely voters, Trump leads Harris 48 percent to 47 percent, well within the margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. That’s a significant change from the last NYT/Siena survey in early July, which had President Biden six points behind the former president. The poll showed Harris garnering about 60 percent support from voters under 30 and Hispanic voters, groups Biden had consistently struggled with. And Trump, who had held a narrow lead with voters under 45 in the matchup against Biden, is now trailing Harris by 10 percentage points. But the results weren't even the most interesting thing about the poll write-up. This was:
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| And then came the cleanup.
|  | WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: These welcoming economic numbers from the Commerce Department, which found that gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation and seasonality, rose at an annual rate of 2.8 percent for April through June. The second-quarter number outpaces the 1.4 percent rate in the first quarter and is well above the 2.1 percent rate economists had expected. Household spending, the main driver of the U.S. economy, rose at a 2.3 percent rate in the second quarter. White House communications director BEN LABOLT shared the news on X, reposting Semafor’s JOSEPH ZEBALLOS-ROIG’s post, which showed that the House Budget GOP staff released a statement using the expected 2.1 percent GDP growth rate as a placeholder, adding that the “middling economic growth will do little to overcome the damage that has been done by the Biden-Harris economic agenda.” LaBolt replied: “Republicans rooting against the American economy, per usual.” WHAT WILMINGTON WANTS YOU TO WATCH: Two newly resurfaced clips of JD Vance in 2021, both of which feature him denigrating people who don't have children. On Fox News, Vance told TUCKER CARLSON that America is run by “childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives,” specifically referencing Kamala Harris, PETE BUTTIGIEG and Rep. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-N.Y.). Actress JENNIFER ANISTON posted the clip on her Instagram story, writing “I truly can’t believe this is coming from a potential VP of the United States.” And in a past speech, Vance said that Americans without children should “face the consequences and the reality” and not get “nearly the same voice” in democracy. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This piece by The Atlantic’s MARK LEIBOVICH, who isn’t exactly buying Biden’s decision to step aside as the purely selfless “country first” gesture the president portrayed it as during his Oval Office address on Wednesday night (Eli’s report on the speech also made this point). “Let’s acknowledge — and the president did not — that, until a few days ago, he was waging an exasperating battle on behalf of personal ambition: his own,” Leibovich wrote. “And he seemed quite determined to keep the job he’d spent much of his life gunning for. He fretted, fumed, and stalled. Eventually he came around. Or at least had nowhere to go and spun a new and noble story.”
| | | | CAN’T GO WORSE THAN THE FIRST ONE! Harris told reporters upon returning to Washington on Thursday that she has agreed to take part in the second presidential debate with Trump, our MYAH WARD reports. “I have agreed to the previously agreed upon September 10 debate,” Harris said, noting that Trump already committed to the ABC News-hosted debate when Biden was the candidate. Since Harris replaced Biden as the Democratic nominee, Trump has waffled, suggesting that Fox News should host the debate. “Now, here he is backpedaling, and I'm ready. And I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage, and so I'm ready to go,” Harris added. BEYHIVE MEETS THE KHIVE: The Harris campaign is out with its first digital ad and, while the script isn’t a major departure from the Biden messaging, the vibes are completely different. First of all, there’s the soundtrack: BEYONCÉ’s “Freedom,” which not only underscores Harris’ central argument but infuses it with cultural currency. Secondly, the b-roll is better: video of raucous crowds underlaid with chants of “Kamala!” from her event in Milwaukee earlier this week, capturing an enthusiasm for the new Democratic ticket that hadn’t been there before. And then there’s Harris’ own voice-over, recorded on Wednesday from the road in Indianapolis, recasting the president’s graver warnings about democracy in a more optimistic contrast centered on freedom. “There are some people who think we should be a country of chaos, of fear, of hate,” Harris says over shots of Donald Trump and JD Vance. “But us? We choose something different. We choose freedom.” SOMEONE REALLY WANTS PETE: An anonymous, 20-page memo circulating on X and sent to West Wing Playbook makes a compelling case for Pete Buttigieg to be Vice President Harris’ running mate, using a matrix to lay out how each ticket would fare against Trump. Buttigieg The anonymous wonk makes the case for all the potential VPs, including JOSH SHAPIRO, MARK KELLY, TIM WALZ and GRETCHEN WHITMER, among others, before laying out a detailed pitch for Pete. Based on several constituencies each candidate can help Harris pick up, Buttigieg brings the most to the table at 15, while the second closest — Kelly and Walz — take 11.
“Buttigieg is the single best communicator in the Democratic Party,” the memo reads. “He’s a telegenic and faithful attack dog, a tested debater ready to rip JD Vance apart, and has a penchant for going viral.” As for the others, we would never handicap the veepstakes ourselves, but — okay, yes we would. And while there are no doubt several important factors to consider besides communication skills and charisma, let’s just say again that the unassuming Walz continues to kill it (Shapiro, too), while Kentucky Gov. ANDY BESHEAR appears to be trying perhaps a touch too hard. The anonymous memo author concludes with this: “There’s a value to the technocratic aspects of campaign — polling, data and analytics, hyper-segmentation, paid media, etc. — but right now the foundational filter should be picking a VP who adds to the vibe.” CONTINUING THE BRAT SUMMER: Vice President Harris will make a guest appearance on the season 9 finale of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” All Stars, which airs Friday on Paramount+. In the preview, Harris encourages viewers to continue fighting for the LGBTQ+ community and to register to vote. She's joined by “Drag Race” mainstay judge MICHELLE VISAGE, JAMAL SIMS, LANCE BASS, LESLIE JONES and CHEYENNE JACKSON.
| | PERSONNEL MOVES: President Biden tapped former Florida Rep. VAL DEMINGS and Republican WILLIAM ZOLLARS as his nominees to be governors of the United States Postal Service Board of Governors.
| | SEVEN WEEKS LATER: Nearly two months after President Biden announced executive action on securing the border, the number of encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border has decreased by 55 percent, and the 7-day average is below 1,800 a day, per a factsheet from the Department of Homeland Security. In June, the Border Patrol recorded 83,536 encounters between ports of entry, the lowest since January 2021. Since the order, DHS has removed and returned more than 65,000 individuals to more than 125 countries, including by operating more than 200 international reparation flights, a DHS fact sheet reads.
| | Biden Lost His Voice, Then His Power (POLITICO’s John Harris) Jeffrey Katzenberg: Biden Did What Was Best for the Country (Jeffrey Katzenberg for NYT) Kamala Harris is still the underdog against Trump. These three things could change that. (LAT’s David Lauter) As Trump unloads on Harris, even his supporters see her gaining ground (POLITICO’s Natalie Allison) No Freebies: The cost of Biden’s dealings with Black talk radio (CJR’s Josh Hersh)
| | | President JIMMY CARTER had a pet Border Collie mix named Grits. The dog proved to be popular with the public, especially because Grits was born on the day of Carter’s election win, according to the White House Historical Association. Thanks to the White House Historical Association for this question! A CALL OUT! Do you think you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best one about the presidents, with a citation or sourcing, and we may feature it! Edited by Steve Shepard and Rishika Dugyala.
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