| | | | |  | | By Ryan Lizza, Rachael Bade and Eugene Daniels | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | PAPA DON’T PREACH — POPE FRANCIS slammed both leading presidential candidates yesterday, saying Americans would be forced to choose “the lesser evil,” per WSJ’s Ginger Adams Otis. Without naming VP KAMALA HARRIS or DONALD TRUMP specifically, he said both stood “against life” — Harris for supporting legal abortion and Trump for demonizing immigrants. “I can’t decide,” he added. “I’m not American.”
|  Donald Trump tried to stick to some policy. But all of that was overwhelmed by the other Trump. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo | THE TRUMP-HARRIS SPLIT SCREEN — It was yet another day on the presidential campaign trail driven by the debate fallout. For Trump, it was best summed up by this lede from Eric Neugeboren and Isabella Aldrete in The Nevada Independent: “Donald Trump returned to Las Vegas on Friday to highlight proposed economic policies in a speech meant to woo swing state Nevadans, but spent much of his time repeating falsehoods and bemoaning this week's presidential debate.” This was the second time that Trump has visited Nevada in the last three weeks. That he is there at all is one of the main ways that the race has changed for him. Trump had a nearly 6-point lead over President JOE BIDEN there in July. Polling averages now show a dead heat against Harris. As the Indy points out, Trump tried to stick to some policy — he pledged to open up federal land for housing, a reasonable idea that has some bipartisan support to address one of the biggest issues of the campaign. Earlier in the day, speaking in California, he proposed exempting overtime earnings from federal tax and — more controversially but still in the realm of policy — withholding federal disaster funds unless California Gov. GAVIN NEWSOM delivered more water to farmers, as Tyler Katzenberger, Debra Kahn and Melanie Mason report. But all of that was overwhelmed by the other Trump: — He pledged to deport legal Haitian immigrants to Venezuela. This story has dominated Trump coverage all week, and there is no sign that he is looking to downplay it. There are several new angles this morning. NBC News explains how the Haitian conspiracy theories originated with neo-Nazis and how the person who originated the Facebook post about it now has deep regrets. WaPo’s Danielle Paquette and Karin Brulliard report that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, and Venezuelans in Aurora, Colorado, fear for their safety. Meanwhile, ELON MUSK used his X account to spread a misleading story about a 71-year-old Springfield woman getting run down by a Haitian immigrant — a story debunked by the police report on the incident. — He is still not interested in distancing himself from LAURA LOOMER, which was predictable. This AP story could have been written in 2015: “‘Laura’s been a supporter of mine,’ Trump told reporters at a press conference near Los Angeles, where he was pressed on concerns from Republican allies about his ongoing association with Loomer, who once declared herself a ‘proud Islamophobe’ and has a long history of promoting ugly and extreme conspiracies. “Trump said Loomer has ‘strong opinions,’ but insisted at the news conference he was unaware of her recent comments, including a post on X in which she played on racist stereotypes by writing that ‘the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center’ if his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, wins in November. Harris is the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants.” — He baselessly claimed Harris never worked at McDonald’s. — He baselessly claimed Harris wore a secret earpiece at the debate. — And in his new photo book, Trump claimed Canadian PM JUSTIN TRUDEAU is FIDEL CASTRO’s son, per Kyle Duggan, who reports that Trump is now facing calls “to apologize for reviving and circulating a long-debunked rumor that is ‘vile, vulgar, and deeply offensive.’”
| | | | A message from Novo Nordisk: At Novo Nordisk, our majority shareholder is a charitable foundation committed to improving people’s health and the sustainability of society and the planet. That lets us invest in early science and take risks for the benefit of patients as we drive change to defeat serious chronic diseases. | | | As for Harris, she remains on script and on task. In Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, she unveiled a new policy to cut degree requirements for federal jobs — borrowing a policy from host-state Gov. JOSH SHAPIRO. More from Reuters Holly Otterbein and Jessica Piper take a close look at the geography of Harris’ recent campaign stops and explain how she is hitting redder and swingier spots — “a shift that underscores her unique strengths and challenges relative to” Biden, who was stuck trying to shore up his support in big cities: “The [Harris] campaign is less concerned now about locking up the Democratic base, eschewing the need to focus quite as heavily on major liberal cities like Philly. Instead, Harris’ team sees room to grow among many of the types of voters located in the smaller cities, exurban locales and rural areas that she is now visiting: older, mostly non-college-educated, white voters.” More on this strategy from NYT and WaPo The biggest knock against Harris from Trump world in the last 24 hours is that they believe she botched a local TV interview, with Brian Taff of Philly’s top-rated Action News. Several Trump advisers sent it to us, suggesting Harris was evasive and rambling in the way that many Republicans expected her to be on the debate stage Tuesday. Watch here and see for yourself if they have a point. Good Saturday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza. THE TALK OF CAPITOL HILL’S GROUP CHATS — “GOP lawmaker’s wife accuses him of an affair — and points the finger at the wrong woman,” by Rachael: “The story of [Rep. MARK] GREEN’s marital infidelity has been complicated by the fact that [estranged wife] CAMILLA GREEN subsequently said she initially pointed the finger at the wrong person. Her message identified Green’s romantic partner as a ‘32 year old woman that works for Axios,’ the online news outlet. In fact, Green’s relationship was with a different woman, who works in politics in Washington but has no affiliation with Axios, according to multiple people involved. … “‘It is no secret that Mark is going through something personal, and I want to respect his privacy, but in the interest of making sure there is no collateral damage, I want to make sure people know that any rumors or claims of a relationship with a reporter are abjectly false,’ the woman added.”
| | | | A message from Novo Nordisk:   Through revolutionary research, Novo Nordisk is transforming the lives of Americans with obesity and diabetes. | | | | | WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY | | At the White House Biden will return to the White House from Wilmington, Delaware. He and Harris will speak at the 2024 Phoenix Awards Dinner at the Washington Convention Center at 8:15 p.m. On the trail Harris will also speak at a political event at 3:05 p.m. Minnesota Gov. TIM WALZ will speak at a rally in Superior, Wisconsin, at 3:30 p.m. Eastern.
| | | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | | |  A new probe from the Secret Service, now led by acting Director Ronald Rowe Jr., has pointed out issues in how it prepared for Donald Trump's Butler, Pennsylvania, rally. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 9 THINGS THAT STUCK WITH US 1. ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT FALLOUT: “Secret Service probe details failures before Trump rally shooting,” by WaPo’s Carol Leonnig: “A Secret Service investigation has confirmed security breakdowns that paved the way for an attempted assassination of Donald Trump, while also revealing new information — including that agents never directed local police to secure the roof of the building used by the gunman … [T]he investigation found that agents from Secret Service headquarters and the Pittsburgh field office had an alarmingly slipshod strategy to block a potential shooter from having a clear sight of the Republican nominee.” 2. BIDEN FINALLY GOES TO AFRICA: In the waning months of his presidency, Biden will journey to the continent for the first time during his tenure with a trip to Angola, Reuters’ Andrea Shalal scooped. Though plans aren’t final, it’ll likely happen between the U.N. General Assembly meeting and the election. The trip would mark the first time an American president has visited sub-Saharan Africa in nine years. 3. THE STAKES FOR NOVEMBER: “A Georgia Work Program Previews How Trump Could Reshape Medicaid,” by NYT’s Noah Weiland in Atlanta: Georgia Pathways to Coverage “is styled as a rebuttal to Medicaid expansion, showcasing the Republican emphasis on personal responsibility as a condition of publicly subsidized health care. But health policy experts have said that the approach essentially punishes people … putting lower-income people managing complicated lives in limbo unless they can flash their pay stubs. The program has served as a warning sign of how those reforms are put into practice. By July, a year into the Pathways program, fewer than 4,500 people had signed up.” 4. THE LATINO VOTE: The Harris campaign is doubling down on reaching Hispanic voters with a new $3 million investment in Spanish-language radio, NBC’s Monica Alba scooped. Throughout National Hispanic Heritage Month, the campaign will also launch an organizing effort tied to boxing matches and baseball games, plus surrogate travel and engagement with local sports coverage. Campaign manager JULIE CHAVEZ RODRIGUEZ will be at tonight’s CANELO ALVAREZ vs. EDGAR BERLANGA fight in Las Vegas. Harris still has work to do to earn many Latinos’ votes, USA Today’s Francesca Chambers, Rebecca Morin and Joey Garrison report from Allentown, Pennsylvania. There, they find voters who say they still haven’t been contacted by either campaign and they need to hear more from Harris. The VP is due to speak Wednesday at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s annual conference. 5. BATTLE FOR THE SENATE: “Bob Casey campaign won’t renew ad that drew criticism from widow of Jamal Khashoggi,” by Daniel Lippman: “The campaign said in a statement Friday that it sympathizes with the widow of JAMAL KHASHOGGI, but didn’t plan to immediately pull the ad, which uses the image of the journalist to criticize opponent DAVE McCORMICK for ties to the Saudi government. Campaign spokesperson MADDY McDANIEL said that the ad, which the widow said was insensitive, would be cycled out next week as planned. … She said the campaign spoke with the widow, HANAN ELATR KHASHOGGI, who says the ad is insensitive and incorrectly identifies her late husband as an American.” 6. THE 2020 INVESTIGATIONS: “Georgia’s lieutenant governor won’t be charged in election interference case,” by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Tamar Hallerman and Bill Rankin: “After spending five months investigating the former GOP state senator [Lt. Gov. BURT JONES], PETE SKANDALAKIS, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, concluded ‘this matter does not warrant further consideration.’ … [Jones] was among the GOP electors labeled a ‘target’ of the Fulton County election interference case. He escaped indictment after a judge found that District Attorney FANI WILLIS had conflict of interest, a decision that threw the investigation to Skandalakis’ organization.” 7. SPOILER ALERT: Trump attorney JAY SEKULOW is representing the Green Party as it asked the Supreme Court yesterday to step in and help get JILL STEIN on the ballot, per CNN’s John Fritze and Devan Cole. The party’s emergency appeal asks the nation’s high court to undo a Nevada Supreme Court ruling that booted Stein over problems with her signature-gathering forms. Sekulow’s involvement — and the fact that Democrats brought the original lawsuit — show just how crucial both major parties consider the presence of third-party spoiler candidates like Stein, whose vote totals in 2016 likely cost HILLARY CLINTON the election.
| | | | A message from Novo Nordisk:   Novo Nordisk's revolutionary pharmaceutical research is transforming the lives of Americans with obesity and diabetes. At Novo Nordisk, we take the long view of health. | | | 8. HOSTAGE NEGOTIATIONS: “U.S. hostages still owe taxes. Congress might not help,” by WaPo’s Jacob Bogage and Julie Zauzmer Weil: “The Senate in May unanimously passed a measure that would prevent the Internal Revenue Service from assessing penalties to freed hostages who didn’t file or pay taxes during their ordeal. On Wednesday, the House Ways and Means Committee unanimously advanced similar legislation. “But the House committee packaged the hostage tax bill with a measure that would make it easier for the government to strip tax-exempt status from nonprofit groups over allegations of support for terrorism. And because of an arcane procedural step Congress took to try to speed passage of the hostage bill, that move probably prevented it from becoming law.” 9. BIDEN’S BIG INITIATIVES IN ACTION: Biden’s major push to shift the American economy to clean energy is running into a new obstacle. Major U.S. steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs tells Zack Colman that it may have to give up a $500 million grant to manufacture “green” steel, which is made with low carbon emissions, because it can’t get customers to spring for the costlier material. “That’s a decision that I’m going to have to make very soon,” CEO LOURENCO GONCALVES says, adding that “he worried that the market is not yet willing to pay the true cost of green steel.” But another big Biden effort could be headed for a major announcement soon: Bloomberg’s Mackenzie Hawkins and Ian King report that “Intel Corp. has officially qualified for as much as $3.5 billion in federal grants to make semiconductors for the Pentagon.” Though other chipmakers have voiced concerns about Intel getting so much of the federal funding, official news of the preliminary award could come as early as next week. CLICKER — “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker — 18 funnies
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Lalao Alcaraz - Calo News | GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Ryan Lizza: — “Living In A Lucid Dream,” by Claire Evans in Noema Magazine: “Recent research on lucid dreams suggests that consciousness exists along a spectrum between sleep and waking, between hallucination and revelation, between dreamworlds and reality.” — “The Nazi of Oak Park,” by Michael Soffer in Chicago magazine: “It was a stunning revelation: A respected high school custodian had been a concentration camp guard. This excerpt of a new book examines how the disclosure of a dark secret in the early ’80s divided a suburb.” — “She Ate a Poppy Seed Salad Just Before Giving Birth. Then They Took Her Baby Away,” by The Marshall Project’s Shoshana Walter: “Hospitals use drug tests that return false positives from poppy seed bagels, decongestants and Zantac. Yet newborns are being taken from parents based on the results.” — “How a U.N. Agency Became a Flashpoint in the Gaza War,” by the NYT Magazine’s Ben Hubbard: “UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, has survived 75 years of Israeli-Palestinian strife. Can it survive the latest conflict?” — “The Sentinel,” WaPo: “Casey Cep on Ronald E. Walters of the National Cemetery Administration.” — “The Final Penalty,” by The Philadelphia Inquirer’s David Gambacorta: “Eagles 1980 Super Bowl icons, damaged by the game they loved, struggle to get compensated through the NFL’s controversial concussion deal.” — “The Man Who Made Nike Uncool,” by Bloomberg Businessweek’s Kim Bhasin and Lily Meier: “Instead of transforming the sneaker giant into a high-tech powerhouse, John Donahoe pissed off partners and disappointed fans.” — “Inside Google’s 7-Year Mission to Give AI a Robot Body,” by Hans Peter Brondmo in Wired: “As the head of Alphabet’s AI-powered robotics moonshot, I came to believe many things. For one, robots can’t come soon enough. For another, they shouldn’t look like us.” — “Russia’s Espionage War in the Arctic,” by The New Yorker’s Ben Taub: “For years, Russia has been using the Norwegian town of Kirkenes, which borders its nuclear stronghold, as a laboratory, testing intelligence operations there before replicating them across Europe.” — “Russia’s First Secret Influence Campaign: Convincing the U.S. to Buy Alaska,” by Casey Michel in POLITICO Magazine: “Russia has been peddling influence for a long time, using a playbook that it still uses today.”
| | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | Marc Elias would very much like to be excluded from this narrative. Donald Trump thinks David Muir’s hair has gone a little downhill. Bryce Hall, a major Gen Z influencer, joined Trump on stage in Las Vegas. Bernie Moreno’s new dealership is getting trolled by Ohio Dems. Ella Emhoff was all over New York Fashion Week. OUT AND ABOUT — EMILY’s List held its annual San Francisco conference and luncheon yesterday. SPOTTED: New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, Arizona AG Kris Mayes, Reps. Andrea Salinas (D-Ore.) and Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, Angela Andrews, California state Controller Malia Cohen, Laura Friedman, Michelle Vallejo and Jessica Morse. — SPOTTED at the XR Association and Information Technology and Innovation Foundation’s fourth annual AR/VR Policy Conference at the AT&T Forum: Elizabeth Hyman, Daniel Castro, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), David Chu, Ziad Asghar, Joan O’Hara, Christine Mui, Ashley Gold, Adam Cargill, Jithesh Veetil, Barbara Brawn, Dan Scarfe, Richard Hung, Carlos Gutierrez, Troy Hall, Trista Pierce, Nicole Catanzarite, Dylan Gilbert, Susan Persky, Theodore Leavell, Ryan Rhodes and Dena Feldman. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis … Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson … Axios’ Hans Nichols … Jennifer Jacobs … Bloomberg’s Katie Boyce … NYT’s Matt Flegenheimer, Tim Arango and Melina Delkic … MSNBC’s Alex Korson … Russell Berman of The Atlantic … DGA’s Ofirah Yheskel … DNC’s Roger Lau … Rachel Bissex of News Corp. … POLITICO’s Danielle Woodward and Kevin Bogardus … Angela Grossfeld … NewsNation’s Tanya Noury … Nick Magallanes … Strauss Media Strategies’ Richard Strauss … Elliot Berke of Berke Farah … NBC’s Scott Foster … Luke Bolar … Rey Benitez … Jillian Hughes of Green Ribbon Media … Josh Gordon … Brittany Parker … Sandeep Prasanna of Miller & Chevalier Chartered … Paula Dobriansky … Trent Duffy … John Ladd … Ben Merkel … Brian Greer … Joyce Brayboy … Paul McCarthy … Julia Cohen … Rachel Ryan … Arturo Sarukhan … CNN’s Courtney Flantzer … Amy Kauffman … Morgan Rosenberg of MapleBridge Strategies … Zack Whitford … Jolyn Cikanek of Enact Mortgage Insurance … Andrew Zhang THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here): CNN “Fareed Zakaria GPS”: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy … Yegor Firsov … Masha, a Ukrainian student. NBC “Meet the Press”: Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) … Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Panel: Hallie Jackson, Jonathan Martin, Symone Sanders-Townsend and Marc Short. CNN “State of the Union”: Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) … Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Panel: Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Scott Jennings, Ashley Allison and Brenda Gianiny. CBS “Face the Nation”: Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) … Maryland Gov. Wes Moore … Gary Cohn … Chris Krebs … David Becker. FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro … Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). Panel: Stef Kight, Horace Cooper, Meghan Hays and Josh Holmes. Sunday special: Dennis Quaid. ABC “This Week”: Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine … Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey. Panel: Donna Brazile, Reince Priebus, Asma Khalid and Susan Glasser. MSNBC “The Weekend”: Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson … Oregon state Rep. Janelle Bynum … Olivia Troye … Shomari Figures. NewsNation “The Hill Sunday”: Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) … David French. Panel: David French, Tia Mitchell, Julie Mason and Dan Merica. 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. Corrections: Yesterday’s Playbook misstated the name of a news outlet. It is CoinDesk. It also misidentified one of the nations Matthew Olsen identified in a speech as intending to meddle in U.S. elections, due to an error in an NYT story. The nations are Iran, China and Russia.
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