| | | | |  | | By Eli Okun | | Presented by |  | | | |  | THE CATCH-UP | | |  The past 11 days since he joined the GOP ticket have been a decidedly mixed bag for Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio). | Alex Wong/Getty Images | FRESH FACES, NEW SCRUTINY — After several consecutive years of the two most well-known men in the country dominating American politics, this week everyone’s attention to turned to VP KAMALA HARRIS and Sen. JD VANCE (R-Ohio). Though both are hardly unknown quantities, the race is on to define both in voters’ eyes — while criticizing, digging up dirt on or outright mocking each other. The past 11 days since he joined the GOP ticket and addressed the Republican National Convention have been a decidedly mixed bag for Vance. On the positive side of the ledger, sales of his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” have soared, as has viewership of the movie adaptation. But Vance has faced steady scrutiny of provocative remarks he made as he sought to ingratiate and establish himself among the New Right. Democrats have been having a field day digging up old controversial comments from Vance (or in some cases fabricating viral jokes about him). The latest comes from ABC’s Will Steakin and Katherine Faulders, who report that in 2021, Vance argued for childless Americans to be placed in a higher tax bracket. (Sort of an upside-down, nanny-state version of the Democratic-favored Child Tax Credit.) Today on Megyn Kelly’s show, Vance said his mocking description of Democratic women as “childless cat ladies” had been sarcastic, but he stood by the substance of it: that having kids changes one’s perspective. Meanwhile, The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger have a fun look at Vance’s pre-New Right blogger days. The mainstream press, meanwhile, has been digging into aspects of Vance’s life story and record: WSJ’s Nancy Youssef and Gordon Lubold examine his service in the Marines in Iraq, a “defining moment” that left him far more skeptical of interventionist foreign policy and the political elites who advocate for it. AP’s Julie Carr Smyth looks at Vance’s name changes over the course of decades, which reflect his search for identity amid a tumultuous family life. And NYT’s Robert Draper visited an Ohio River town ravaged by opioids to take stock of Vance’s efforts to combat the epidemic — which have been “comparatively modest,” he writes. And in Vance’s hometown of Middletown, Ohio, Reuters’ Nicholas Brown finds a community that sees itself half reflected, half distorted by the senator’s view of it. There’s plenty of the poverty, disenfranchisement and pessimism that Vance bemoaned in America’s hollowed-out, deindustrialized regions. But more recently, the downtown has been revitalized — there’s an opera house, a brewery and even LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations — while tax revenue, commercial development and a big steel plant are growing. Harris, still riding a wave of shock and relief at President JOE BIDEN’s withdrawal, is clearly having the better week. Her “warp speed” campaign launch has reenergized her party and altered the fundamentals of the race, even as the Democratic message remains largely the same, CNN’s Eric Bradner reports. Giffords is launching a $15 million advertising and organizing blitz to boost her and Democratic House candidates with a focus on gun violence, NBC’s Sahil Kapur scooped. And despite what Speaker MIKE JOHNSON keeps saying, CNN’s Daniel Dale, Casey Gannon and Paula Reid surveyed all 50 states and found that 48 of them said there won’t be a legal problem with switching from Biden to Harris on ballots. (Florida and Montana didn’t respond.) Even some skeptics are coming around: Rep. DON DAVIS (D-N.C.), who just yesterday voted to condemn Harris over immigration, today endorsed her. NOTUS’ Evan McMorris-Santoro reports that Philadelphia Dem Chair BOB BRADY, a longtime friend of Biden, has changed course now to back Harris fully. And Harris is having more success in unlocking major tech donors, NBC’s Mike Memoli and CNBC’s Brian Schwartz report. But scrutiny of Harris’ record is intensifying, too. On criminal justice, while her allies are seeking to portray her as “a middle-of-the-road prosecutor,” she’s facing flak from both the left and right for being too tough or too soft, Dustin Gardiner and Myah Ward report from San Francisco. And CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck dig up comments from 2020 when Harris praised the “defund the police” movement for asking whether too much money was going to police rather than other public services. More Harris reading: “But Can She Win?” by N.Y. Mag’s Gabriel Debenedetti … “K Street Pivots for a Possible Harris Administration,” by NYT’s Ken Vogel Happy Friday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at eokun@politico.com. YIKES — ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. told CBS’ Major Garrett that “it’s quite possible” more women would make sexual assault allegations against him. “I’m 70 years old,” he said. “I had a very rambunctious life.” HAPPENING NEXT WEEK — Join POLITICO on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. for an exclusive conversation with NASA Administrator BILL NELSON about the space economy. Plus, we’ll talk with Sens. JOHN HICKENLOOPER (D-Colo.) and JERRY MORAN (R-Kan.) as well as the FAA’s commercial space lead KELVIN COLEMAN, NOAA’s space commerce director RICHARD DalBELLO, Space Foundation’s MEGHAN ALLEN and the Satellite Industry Association’s president TOM STROUP. RSVP to attend here
| | 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. | | | | | 7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW | | |  New inflation data could help Fed Chair Jerome Powell stick to the path of cutting interest rates later this year. | Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo | 1. INFLATION NATION: The latest data out today showed that inflation is largely continuing on a track of slowly abating: The Personal Consumption Expenditures index, which is the Fed’s preferred measure, rose 2.5 percent year over year in June. That means price pressures ticked down from May’s 2.6 percent, and are inching closer to the central bank’s 2 percent goal. On the other hand, core inflation (without food and fuels) held steady at 2.6 percent, and the month-over-month measure actually rose slightly. The upshot is that the Fed looks likely to stick with its plan of starting to cut interest rates later this year, but not as soon as its meeting next week. Today’s numbers also showed consumer spending rising as the economy remains fairly strong overall. “Taken as a whole, Friday’s figures suggest that the worst streak of inflation in four decades, which peaked two years ago, is nearing an end,” AP’s Christopher Rugaber writes — and a “soft landing” is in sight. 2. THE WASHINGTON THAT WASN’T: “‘They Brought Almost Nothing New With Them’: Washington Ponders Biden’s DC Legacy,” by Michael Schaffer: “Just what the heck was the Joe Biden era? … [F]ew people can point to much legacy for the way the capital lives, works and plays. … Biden took office as the most Washington president in decades … Yet he’ll leave behind a smaller cultural footprint than any president since GEORGE H.W. BUSH … What’s not clear, though, is whether a light capital footprint is actually a bad thing.” 3. HOW WE GOT HERE: “Trump White House was warned sanctions on Venezuela could fuel migration,” by WaPo’s Jeff Stein, Ellen Nakashima and Samantha Schmidt: “The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis delivered the classified assessments … to the White House National Security Council and the top two DHS officials in at least four reports between 2017 and 2019 … The Trump administration nevertheless imposed some of the harshest economic penalties in U.S. history on Venezuela … “The sanctions are fiercely defended by proponents, who say they were a necessary response to one of the most brutal crackdowns on civilians in two decades. Today, however, [NICOLÁS] MADURO remains in power, and a surge in Venezuelan immigrants has emerged as a flash point in the U.S. presidential election.”
| | | | 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. | | | | | 4. THE NEW VOTING RESTRICTIONS: In several Republican-led states, the big voter registration drives of yore are running into new obstacles, NYT’s Michael Wines reports. Florida and other states (mostly not battlegrounds) are slapping harsh new penalties on groups that get people to register to vote if there are mistakes in their records. That has had a major chilling effect on organizations of all political bents, which are now signing up tens of thousands of people fewer than they used to each year. Conservatives say the laws are necessary, and that groups still have ways to get people to register. Stat of the day: Vote.org said it has now registered 100,000 new voters nationwide since Biden dropped out of the race, with Texas, California and Florida at the top of the list. Eighty-four percent were younger than 35. 5. JERSEY BOY: In next year’s New Jersey gubernatorial race, Republican ED DURR wants to shock the political landscape much like he did in 2021, Daniel Han reports from West Deptford. The blue-collar trucker who made the leap to state senator fashioned himself in a conservative mold in Trenton, where he had little success against Democratic majorities. Now he’s back to driving trucks — and hoping to upset better-funded rivals in the GOP primary. 6. TALES FROM THE CRYPTO: “Harris scrambles Trump’s crypto play,” by Jasper Goodman: “[DONALD] TRUMP’s Saturday appearance at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville is the latest sign that a second Trump term would likely usher in policies friendly to digital asset firms. … [But] crypto-friendly Democrats are hopeful that Harris will usher in a softer approach [than Biden]. Though she hasn’t taken a position on digital asset regulation as VP, crypto advocates point to her age and roots in tech-friendly California as reasons to be optimistic.” 7. NARCOS: How did the U.S. feds nab top cartel leaders ISMAEL ‘EL MAYO’ ZAMBADA and JOAQUIN GUZMAN LOPEZ? CNN’s Emma Tucker, Polo Sandoval and Evan Perez have the back story: Investigators took advantage of a cleavage in the Sinaloa cartel and had Guzman Lopez’s inside help. When they boarded a plane, Zambada thought their destination was inspecting land in Mexico — and instead it landed in El Paso, Texas. The Mexican government wasn’t informed about the operation until after the arrests were made.
| | | | The space economy is already woven into our lives in ways we don't always appreciate, creating a global backbone for communications, media, data, science and defense. It's also becoming an increasingly competitive zone among nations - and a venue for complex and important public-private partnerships. Join POLITICO on July 30 for a conversation about what Washington needs to understand is at stake – which sectors of the global economy see their growth arc in space, and what the role of government leaders is in both growing and regulating the explosion of orbital ideas. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | Tim Walz is picking up labor support in the veepstakes. Joe Biden’s proposed AI safeguards got Apple to come on board. William Burns is heading to Rome for more negotiations over the Israel-Hamas war. Mike Pompeo’s mom’s fudge recipe remains a government secret. OUT AND ABOUT — Adrienne Arsht hosted a party for Anthony Fauci’s new book, “On Call” ($36), yesterday. SPOTTED: Christine Grady, Lisa Monaco, Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova, Luke Frazier, Bob Barnett and Rita Braver, Ann and Lloyd Hand, Patricia Harrison, Paige Ennis, Robert Pullen, John Sullivan, Bill Cohen, Italian Ambassador Mariangela Zappia, Andrew Steer and Ellen Stofan. — The cover band After the Party, comprising Robby Cousart, Wil Pepek, Ian Pepek and Scott Stephanou, performed at Solace for a recess happy hour, hosted by Javier Barajas Martinez, Chris Davis, Yujin Lee and Lin Whitehouse. SPOTTED: Amy Pfeiffer, Kevin Diamond, Wes Kungel, Scarlet Samp, Kana Smith, Colleen Carlos, Nd Ubezonu, Moh Sharma, Ray Salazar, Diana Rudd, Bart Reising, Jake Hilkin, Boris Medzhibovsky, Anne Sokolov, Toby Douthat, Isabel Sanchez, Perry Hamilton, Macey Matthews, Amy Soenksen, Chloe Hunt, Jake Hochberg, Ahmed Elsayed, Liz Amster and Dylan Sodaro. — SPOTTED yesterday at Americans for Prosperity’s “Scoops and Solutions” health care panel and ice cream social: Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), Ryan Long, Brian Blase, Greg D’Angelo, Dean Clancy, Brent Gardner and Erik Rasmussen. TRANSITION — Laura Stevens Kent will be VP of federal affairs at DeBrunner & Associates. She most recently was SVP for advocacy and external affairs at the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, and is a Charlie Dent/Tuesday Group alum. 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.
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