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Presented by Climate Power: The unofficial guide to official Washington. | | | | |  | | By Ryan Lizza, Rachael Bade and Eugene Daniels | | | With help from Eli Okun and Garrett Ross
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The simmering feud between Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump is spilling over again. | Mary Altaffer/AP Photo | |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | While we often point out that making the debate stage is the most important hurdle for any Republican aspirant running in the primaries, hosting a presidential primary debate is enormously important to television networks. But for the Murdoch empire, beset by upstart rivals, it is existential. RUPERT MURDOCH and DONALD TRUMP are the two most important sources of information for Republican voters, and in the last eight years they have waged war for supremacy. Sometimes they use each other (Trump gets airtime, Fox gets ratings), sometimes they are closely aligned (as in a general election against the Democrats), and sometimes they are openly hostile to one another (during primary season in 2015-2016 and again today when Fox and other Murdoch entities search for an alternative to Trump). As with other power centers of the modern GOP that have not fully embraced MAGA, such as the Senate Republican leadership, Trump is again attacking Fox News with the same fury — and weird specificity — that he usually reserves for political rivals. Here’s Trump on Thursday: “Why doesn’t Fox and Friends show all of the Polls where I am beating Biden, by a lot. They just won’t do it! Also, they purposely show the absolutely worst pictures of me, especially the big ‘orange’ one with my chin pulled way back. They think they are getting away with something, they’re not. Just like 2016 all over again…And then they want me to debate!” Trump’s apparent decision to skip the debate and instead do an interview with the ousted Fox host TUCKER CARLSON — who was the most pro-MAGA personality on the network even if he personally despises Trump himself — has to be seen in the context of this Murdoch-Trump war. Trump’s intention is not just to upstage the other candidates. His intention is to damage Fox in the one metric that Murdoch and Trump both understand best: ratings. Right on cue, another round of reports emerged this week that Murdoch is still searching for an alternative to Trump. After reportedly souring on DeSantis, Murdoch has turned his attention to someone new, the WaPo’s Laura Vozzella, Sarah Ellison and Maeve Reston report: “Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has repeatedly encouraged Virginia Gov. GLENN YOUNGKIN (R) to run for president in 2024, according to two people familiar with entreaties made in at least two face-to-face meetings. “The previously unreported meetings took place months ago, but Murdoch’s ask has taken on fresh relevance as Youngkin continues to lay the groundwork for a potential last-minute White House bid and as Murdoch outlets hyped his presidential prospects this month with a mix of sober Wall Street Journal analysis and buzzy Page Six blurbs.”
| | | | A message from Climate Power: President Biden’s Clean Energy Plan is creating more career opportunities for hard-working Americans like Dana, a production manager at a clean energy battery site outside of Pittsburgh. Since August 2022, over 170,600 new clean energy jobs - like Dana’s - have been created in the U.S., paving the way for more good-paying clean energy jobs that Americans can be proud of. Watch Dana’s story. | | | Axios’ Barak Ravid and Alex Thompson also note that Youngkin and Georgia Gov. BRIAN KEMP “are getting secret overtures from establishment Republicans.” FWIW: The Youngkin yearning is probably a pipe dream. If the governor waited to enter the race until after the November elections in Virginia, he’d forfeit two of the first four states, Nevada and South Carolina, which have October qualifying deadlines, and risk not qualifying in his own state of Virginia, which has a December 14 deadline. Meanwhile, the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal’s editorial page has kept up its drumbeat of pieces urging Republicans to clear the field for a single alternative to Trump lest there be a repeat of 2016. In piece titled, “Culling the Republican Presidential Herd,” the editors on Thursday warned: “Any announced candidate who hasn’t qualified for the debate based on the Republican National Committee’s criteria isn’t likely to strike political lightning from the sidelines. Staying in longer is essentially a vanity project, or an audition to be a talk-show host. … “President Biden is eminently beatable if the election campaign is about his record and obvious decline. But not if the election is about Mr. Trump and his grievances and legal peril. Republicans deserve a real nominating contest, not a third Trump coronation, and that means narrowing the field early.” Over in Murdoch’s New York Post, there are glimmers of this same strategy. On Sunday, the paper’s Miranda Devine made the case for Youngkin: “Happy conservative warrior Glenn Youngkin’s recipe for success in Virginia … and the US.” Fox is trying to put a brave face on the debate snub, even after the highest levels of the network spent months wooing Trump. A Fox spokeswoman told the NYT that the network “looks forward to hosting the first debate of the Republican presidential primary season offering viewers an unmatched opportunity to learn more about the candidates’ positions on a variety of issues which is essential to the electoral process.” Murdoch’s former crush is trying to take advantage of Trump’s snub of Fox as best he can. Of Trump’s decision to skip the debate, KRISTIN DAVISON, the COO of DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down, told Playbook this morning: “Not surprising. Trump just doesn’t have the stamina anymore to go toe to toe with someone like Ron DeSantis. Just look at last weekend — Trump spent more time traveling to Iowa than he did at the actual Iowa state fair. He was barely on the ground for an hour before he retreated to Bedminster where he spent the bulk of the day with LAURA LOOMER and LIV Golf. DeSantis spent hours at the fair meeting with voters one on one. It’s too bad Trump’s forfeiting this debate and sad to see he can’t keep up.” More: NYT: “Inside Trump’s Decision to Skip the G.O.P. Debate,” by Jonathan Swan, Jeremy Peters and Maggie Haberman: “Upstaging Fox’s biggest event of the year would be provocation enough. But an interview with Mr. Carlson — who was Fox’s top-rated host and is at war with the network, which is still paying out his contract — amounts to a slap in the network’s face by Mr. Trump. The decision is a potential source of aggravation for the Republican National Committee chairwoman, RONNA McDANIEL, who privately urged him to attend, including in her own visit to Bedminster last month. “But Mr. Trump’s primary motive in skipping the debate is not personal animosity toward Ms. McDaniel but a crass political calculation: He doesn’t want to risk his giant lead in a Republican race that some close to him believe he must win to stay out of prison.” POLITICO: “Why Trump might regret passing on the first debate,” by Steve Shepard Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Biden campaign hits Trump for wanting to ‘avoid appearing in Wisconsin’ for Wednesday’s debate in Milwaukee,” by Lawrence Andrea Good Saturday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.
| | | | A message from Climate Power:   “Since President Biden passed the Clean Energy Plan, we’re creating jobs. Right here, right now.” - Dana, Clean Energy Battery Production Manager. | | | | | PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN’S SATURDAY: The president has nothing on his public schedule.
VP KAMALA HARRIS’ SATURDAY: The vice president is in Los Angeles and has nothing on her public schedule. | | PHOTO OF THE DAY
|  South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, President Joe Biden and Japanese PM Fumio Kishida hold a news conference at Camp David on Friday, Aug. 18. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | 9 THINGS THAT STUCK WITH US 1. GEORGIA ON MY MIND: Trump’s plum spot atop the GOP presidential field, coupled with his still unfolding legal troubles, is causing a schism among Georgia Republicans, “stoking fears within the party that the division may tip the state to Joe Biden in 2024,” WSJ’s Cameron McWhirter and Eliza Collins write from Atlanta. “The divergent visions for the party put it at a disadvantage on messaging, fundraising and organization ahead of 2024, calling into question Republicans’ ability to win over voters in a battleground state Trump narrowly lost to President Biden in 2020.” To wit: One prominent Republican who seems adamantly opposed to Trump’s return to the White House is Georgia Gov. BRIAN KEMP, who has recently met with a parade of Trump’s top primary rivals, speaking with RON DeSANTIS and MIKE PENCE yesterday, and CHRIS CHRISTIE by phone on Thursday, our colleague Alex Isenstadt reports. 2. THE NEW TRUMP EFFECT: Despite Trump’s outsized influence over the Iowa State Fair last weekend (and the subsequent headlines from the annual event), the former president’s traction among real voters in the early state hasn’t exactly taken hold just yet. “Many are conflicted, yearning to turn the page but not disowning the former president,” AP’s Thomas Beaumont and Hannah Fingerhut write from Des Moines, where they spoke to more than 40 Republican voters. “They like what he did in office and support his policy priorities — and yet they worry that what they view largely as political persecution could hobble him both as the Republican nominee and as president.” 3. REQUEST REJECT: “House Republicans are standing between Biden and his war to save Ukraine,” by Jonathan Lemire, Jennifer Haberkorn and Alexander Ward: “The White House’s $24 billion request to arm Ukraine will test the administration’s ability to support Kyiv just as it meets its fiercest resistance from Russia and — for the first time — a Republican-led House holding the purse strings. “The request is part of a larger, $40 billion package full of unrelated big-budget items. The West Wing believes the deal will get done, even if the aid package shrinks, and is executing a strategy to make sure that happens, according to interviews with nearly a dozen White House and congressional aides.” 4. ATTORNEY-CLIENT PILFERAGE: As the cascade of legal troubles for Trump has piled up, RUDY GIULIANI has been right there in the fold. But Trump hasn’t been paying Giuliani for his legal services, and the former NYC mayor’s cash flow is running dry. “For the better part of a year, as Mr. Giuliani has racked up the bills battling an array of criminal investigations, private lawsuits and legal disciplinary proceedings stemming from his bid to keep Mr. Trump in office after the 2020 election, his team has repeatedly sought a lifeline from the former president,” NYT’s Maggie Haberman and Ben Protess report. “And even as the bills have pushed Mr. Giuliani close to a financial breaking point, the former president has largely demurred, the people said, despite making a vague promise during their dinner at Mar-a-Lago to pay up.” 5. THE RIGHT STUFF: The frenzy to launch impeachment proceedings against Biden is growing, and it’s finding its way well beyond the halls of Congress. “Encouraged by their base, and outraged by the criminal investigations into the 45th president, the right flank of the House GOP is trying to build momentum for a Biden impeachment. They’ve gotten asked about it at town halls, brought it up in conservative media hits, and been urged to act quickly by an array of movement leaders,” Semafor’s David Weigel writes. 6. HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE A MANCHIN SCORNED: Sen. JOE MANCHIN once again finds himself at odds with the White House. The West Virginia Democrat isn’t pleased with how the Biden administration is enacting the Inflation Reduction Act — the crown jewel of Biden’s climate agenda — and is making it known in public comments and threats to block appointments to the EPA and Interior Department. “Now Biden and his aides are in the delicate position of trying to agree to Manchin’s demands where they can to avoid antagonizing him more, while still advancing a climate agenda that the senator strongly opposes — even though his vote last year made it possible in the first place,” WaPo’s Jeff Stein and Evan Halper write. 7. THE PRICE OF GOLD: The Trump campaign is cracking down on Republicans who want to use his name and likeness to fundraise without the former president’s consent, Alex Isenstadt reports. Yesterday, the campaign said it would “begin giving a ‘Seal of Approval’ to Republican candidates and groups Trump endorses, in order to help the party’s donors distinguish between those outfits that the former president supports and those that are trying to raise money off his name by falsely conveying they have his backing.” The Trump-blessed group will use a gold-emblazoned badge, reading “Official Team Trump,” to distinguish their fundraising. 8. PENCE GETS IN (AGAIN): MIKE PENCE’s campaign notified donors yesterday that the former vice president crossed the necessary thresholds to qualify for the second GOP presidential debate set to be held in California on Sept. 27, The Hill’s Brett Samuels writes. “While it took other candidates- [NIKKI] HALEY (21 weeks), [VIVEK] RAMASWAMY (21 weeks), and [TIM] SCOTT (13 weeks) - to qualify for the first debate, we have now made two debates in 11 weeks,” Pence campaign manager STEVE DAMAURA wrote in a message to donors. 9. KNOWING VIRGINIA FOXX: “‘She’s just a bull’: Meet the woman leading the GOP’s charge on schools and work,” by Eleanor Mueller and Bianca Quilantan: “Now in her 18th year as a member of Congress, she is the rare Republican to score an exception from her party’s term limits on committee chairships in Congress, entrusting her to lead on hot-button education and labor issues going into 2024. ‘I feel like I’m in the right place at the right time,’ said Foxx, who’s become one of the leading female voices on culture war issues when some of the loudest critics have been men, such as Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump.”
| | | | A message from Climate Power:   “When people talk about clean energy as the fastest growing industry, we feel it here.” - Dana | | | CLICKER — “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker — 15 funnies
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| GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Ryan Lizza: — “My Generation,” by Justin E. H. Smith for Harper’s: “Anthem for a forgotten cohort.” — “How America Got Mean,” by David Brooks for The Atlantic: “In a culture devoid of moral education, generations are growing up in a morally inarticulate, self-referential world.” — “‘Forever Chemicals’ Are Everywhere. What Are They Doing to Us?” by Kim Tingley for NYT Mag: “PFAS lurk in so much of what we eat, drink and use. Scientists are only beginning to understand how they’re impacting our health — and what to do about them.” — “What Is Narcissism? Science Confronts a Widely Misunderstood Phenomenon,” by Diana Kwon for Scientific American: “Researchers debate whether grandiosity always masks vulnerability.” — “‘Don’t You Remember Me?’ The Crypto Hell on the Other Side of a Spam Text,” by Zeke Faux for Bloomberg: “In an exclusive excerpt from Zeke Faux’s forthcoming book, ‘Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall,’ he uncovers a crypto-powered human-trafficking ring in Cambodia.” — “After Hours: The Oral History of a Cult Classic,” by Jake Malooley for Air Mail: “With his career on the ropes, Martin Scorsese fought his way back to the top with a low-budget, surreal black comedy, set in New York’s gritty downtown scene.” — “Divided and disappointed: A family’s endless search for home in the chaotic U.S. asylum system,” by the Houston Chronicle’s Jhair Romero and Raquel Natalicchio — “Shot at while they drowned. Executed in the desert. Those who collected the bodies recount ‘one of the worst days’ in Darfur’s genocide-scarred history,” by CNN’s Tamara Qiblawi, Allegra Goodwin, Nima Elbagir and Celine Alkhaldi — “True Crime, True Faith: The Serial Killer and the Texas Mom Who Stopped Him,” by Julie Miller for Vanity Fair: “In 1981, Margy Palm was abducted by Stephen Morin outside a Kmart. She’s never told the whole shocking story — until now.” — “The Real Story Behind the Great Green Vault Grift,” by Jesse Hyde for Town and Country: “An elite squad of criminals was convicted for the theft of $130 million in jewels. Was getting caught the cost of doing business or the beginning of a more ambitious con?”
| | | PLAYBOOKERS | | | George Santos has a hot tip for job recruiters. Marianne Williamson is building a base on … TikTok? IN MEMORIAM — “James Buckley, conservative politician and U.S. senator, dies at 100,” by WaPo’s Tom Hamburger: “James Buckley, who shared with his younger brother William a familial zeal for conservative politics and served in top positions in all three branches of government, including one term in the 1970s as an independent-minded U.S. senator, died Aug. 18 at a hospital in Washington. He was 100 and the oldest-living former U.S. senator.” — “Pat Hamilton, news photographer in war zones, dies at 74,” by WaPo’s Phil Davison: “Pat Hamilton, a photojournalist who specialized in conflict zones, from Central America to Somalia to the Persian Gulf region, and who may have helped alter a presidential election with a whimsical picture of Gerald Ford eating a tamale incorrectly, died Aug. 13 at his home in San Antonio. He was 74.” — “Dr. Nathaniel Horn, the husband of US Rep. Robin Kelly, has died at 68,” AP WHITE HOUSE DEPARTURE LOUNGE — Grace Landrieu is stepping down as director for economic policy and labor at the National Economic Council and is expected to join Biden’s reelection campaign, Bloomberg’s Justin Sink reports. TRANSITION — Chandler Mason is now legislative director for Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.). Mason most recently was senior policy adviser for Rep. Dwight Evans (D-Pa.). HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Former President Bill Clinton (77) … NYT’s Joe Kahn and Farhad Manjoo … Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) … Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts … Molly Jong-Fast … Mary Matalin (7-0) … former Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) …Julius Genachowski of the Carlyle Group … WSJ’s Brody Mullins and Madeline Marshall … Daily Mail’s Emily Goodin … McKinsey’s Neil Grace … Neil Patel of the Daily Caller and Bluebird Asset Management … Adam Tomlinson … Pat Jones of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association … CNN’s Paula Reid … Steve Sothmann of the Leather and Hide Council of America and Meat Import Council of America … Andrew Vlasaty ... Maria Reynolds of Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) office … Christian McMullen … Adam Conner of the Center for American Progress … WaPo’s Mark Seibel … Alan Pyke … Shannon Campagna … Meta’s Eva Guidarini … Kevin Minoli … Rob Damschen of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office … Ralph Alswang … Tipper Gore … former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder … Tom Rogers … Carol Blymire of Neon Strategies THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here): FOX “Fox News Sunday”: Nikki Haley … Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds … “Sunday special” with Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) from the Iowa State Fair. Iowa panel: Kathie Obradovich and Galen Bacharier. Panel: Peggy Collins, Kevin Roberts and Juan Williams. NBC “Meet the Press”: North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum … Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Panel: Lanhee Chen, Jonathan Martin, Susan Page and Kimberly Atkins Stohr. ABC “This Week”: Mike Pence … FEMA Administrator Deanna Criswell … Preet Bharara. Panel: Donna Brazile, Rick Klein, Asma Khalid and Sarah Isgur. CNN “State of the Union”: FEMA Administrator Deanna Criswell … Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.). Joint interview: Laurence Tribe and J. Michael Luttig. Debate preview panel: Larry Hogan and David Axelrod. Panel: Keisha Lance Bottoms, Geoff Duncan, Paula Begala and Ken Cuccinelli. CBS “Face the Nation”: Hawaii Gov. Josh Green … FEMA Administrator Deanna Criswell … Scott Gottlieb … Anthony Salvanto. Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures”: Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) … RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel. Panel: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Stephen Miller and Robert Lighthizer. 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 producers Setota Hailemariam and Bethany Irvine. Correction: Yesterday’s Playbook misspelled Paul Begala’s name.
| | | | A message from Climate Power: In just one year, Biden’s landmark climate investment has created over 170,600 new clean energy jobs in 44 states, helping hard-working Americans, like Dana, find careers to provide for their family and work toward America’s clean energy future.
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