Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest. I’m Abby Livingston.

I’m here in Chicago with the rest of the Puck crew Peter Hamby, John Heilemann, and Tara Palmeri. The vibes are still bumping, but every time a party leader gets optimistic, there’s always the caveat that this is a tight, tight race. Be sure to check out Heilemann’s fascinating conversation with veteran political columnist James Bennet below.

🎧 In case you missed it, on the latest episode of Tara’s essential election podcast, Somebody’s Gotta Win, she’s joined by Axios’s Alex Thompson and Politico’s Chris Cadelago to decode the present state of the Harris–Walz campaign, including how they’re preparing for the final 75 days of the presidential race and where Barack Obama’s team has been lending support. [Listen Here]

But first, here’s Peter on why Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. ended his campaign today—and the real reason he’s likely throwing in with Trump.

Sources in both camps are saying nothing is final. But the trajectory here is pretty obvious, and it makes sense given how the two men have flattered each other lately in the press. With Kennedy’s single-digit bid going south—partly deprived of oxygen by Kamala Harris, but also because of bizarre self-inflicted wounds and struggles to get on the ballot in key states—it was clear weeks ago that the attention-monger’s only remaining shot at relevance and a possible government job (after getting shot down by Harris’s team) was to hop on the Trump Train.

Trump viewed Kennedy as a spoiler for many months, worried that the contrarian “truth teller” would siphon off rebellious young men who listen to Joe Rogan, pop Zyns, hate pronoun culture, and would never vote for an institutionalist like Joe Biden. Back in the spring, Trump started lashing Kennedy as a “radical left liberal,” just as the D.N.C. was blasting him with Howitzer-level oppo. Kennedy started to tank, and the emergence of Harris eliminated his campaign as a parking spot for fence-sitters who didn’t like Biden.

But Kennedy, ever contemptuous of Biden, was careful to never say anything too critical of Trump—maybe because he knew there was always a slim chance he could land some sort of “czar” role in a Trump administration to carry out his messianic crusade against vaccines. The two men were caught on camera flirting with each other via phone a few weeks back, with Trump seeming to compliment Kennedy’s work against vaccinations. And just this week, Trump told the podcast host Theo Von that Kennedy is “a brilliant guy.” It made today’s news seem obvious in hindsight.

The question now turns to whether Kennedy will help Trump win. Maybe there are some disaffected young male Kennedy supporters—Black and Hispanic men among them—who will shift to Trump. But that threat feels marginal for Harris. It’s also not clear his supporters are even likely voters. Kennedy was already bordering on irrelevance in polls, nationally and in swing states. The remaining die-hards were probably never gettable for Harris. But in my mind, the campaign question is the wrong one. After all, Trump can still very much win this race. If he does, it’s absolutely possible that Trump could appoint Kennedy to a federal position that would allow him to finally wage war against vaccines and, in his mind, the hated Cult of Anthony Fauci. The F.D.A. may never be the same.

And now, my quick roundup of the latest congressional chatter, as seen from the D.N.C.…

• Cutter cuts in: This morning, as I awoke to texts from sources praising Michelle Obama’s speech, I couldn’t help but recall when, during the 2008 campaign, the future first lady was considered a political liability. At the time, Stephanie Cutter was credited with Michelle’s image makeover—she’s also been an invisible hand behind former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor—so I was not surprised to learn that she has also been working with Kamala Harris. Per The Washington Post, Cutter made five visits to the White House earlier this year to advise Harris, and joined the campaign a few weeks ago to help with convention planning.

  Notably, both Harris and Cutter, at different moments, have been on the receiving end of nasty and often gendered attacks, laundered through the media, from Democrats going on background to blame them for everything wrong with the party. In 2004, as John Kerry’s communication director during his losing campaign, Cutter endured so much friendly fire that Kerry himself felt compelled to go on the record to defend her. For Harris, the trash talk reached its apex during her first year as V.P., with friendly fire coming from her own staffers. Oh, how the tables can turn on conventional wisdom.

• Follow the money: Once again, House Democrats outraised Republicans, $17.6 million to $14.3 million in July. Ordinarily, big numbers like those would mark an incredible month for either party. But placed side by side, it’s hard not to equate the two parties’ hauls with the enthusiasm coming out of their respective conventions. Interestingly, according to a source familiar with the Democratic figure, the D.C.C.C. was headed for a strong month even before the Biden-Harris swap. (I suspect that some of that money came from donors trying to batten down the hatches during the three weeks when Biden was floundering.) The more pertinent number, however, is the cash on hand heading into the fall ad wars, where the Dems have an even stronger lead, with a reported $92 million to the House G.O.P.’s $71 million.
• Early Kamala coattails?: Speaking of the Biden-Harris swap, Democratic enthusiasm isn’t limited to the Greater Chicago Area. Here’s a text I received from a vulnerable House Democrat this morning after going into the field: “Biden was down five points June 9-11. We just got the Harris poll back. She’s up five. She’s moved the numbers 10 points in my district. Dem enthusiasm is off the charts. Seriously like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
• Farewell, coach: Finally, R.I.P. to Congressman Bill Pascrell, a New Jersey political fixture and feisty senior member of the Ways and Means committee, who passed away this morning. Pascrell coached the Democrats’ congressional baseball team, and often took swings at bat well into his 80s. This is yet another blow to the New Jersey delegation, which also lost Donald Payne Jr. when he passed away in April, and Robert Menendez, who resigned yesterday after his federal conviction for bribery.

James Bennett: This has been a fired up convention, even a euphoric convention, despite what I thought was a pretty dismal speech by the president. But the reaction to Michelle Obama and Barack Obama was just at a completely different level. The hall just went absolutely wild from the moment they stepped onto the stage.

There was a tandem quality to those two speeches. On TV earlier today, Jim Messina said that Michelle Obama is the most popular political figure in America. I thought, she’s not a political figure, she’s one of the most popular public figures in the world. Her whole power is that she’s beyond politics, because she’s so anti-politics in some way.

She kind of radiates that. In the speech tonight, you sense her resistance to participating in the spectacle, even in the moment she’s absolutely commanding.

I think that that’s part of why she connects with a lot of voters. What did you think about Barack Obama’s speech?

I thought it was phenomenal. You saw all the familiar Obama stylistic points, even the physical movements; his ability to react to the crowd in real time, and then these subtle touches of humor all the way through. And of course, his evisceration of Donald Trump, at which he is second to none. I’m sure it drives Donald Trump crazy.

You don’t always know how it’s received more broadly across the country, but you always have the feeling Barack Obama just takes the intelligence of his audience seriously. They’ve been throwing around the word “freedom” at this convention, but nobody’s really explained what they mean by that other than it’s connected to reproductive rights. Obama supplied the intellectual scaffolding for that idea in a way that just felt authentic.

That’s definitely right. Maybe we’ll see this with Bill Clinton, too.

It’s striking that the former Republican presidents don’t even come to the convention, but I guess that’s part of the power of Trump’s politics, that we’re done with all that. I think there’s this powerful sense of continuity when former presidents show up and remind everybody what they stood for, and that the party has stood for some relatively consistent principles over time. But maybe I’m sentimental and sucker for that kind of stuff.

It’s also that the people who are any good at this on the Republican side have been robbed of their ability to persuade. Basically, you can’t be good at this if you don’t have credibility. Back in 2015 you would have said, Marco Rubio might become a great communicator one day, but now you’ve heard him make so many hypocritical, craven arguments that you can’t take him seriously. And almost everybody in the party is like that now. Trump, who was once kind of a feral beast as a communicator—I find him basically addled. I think his cognitive decline is as significant or worse than Joe Biden’s. He’s just gibbering most of the time.

One of Obama’s asides last night was that Trump’s act is getting kind of stale, which I think is the most effective way to drive him crazy. That slightly dismissive approach.

I would say that Michelle Obama’s evisceration of Trump last night was as effective as Obama’s evisceration of Hillary Clinton at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in 2007. It was a beautifully constructed and beautifully written piece of negative oratory without ever mentioning his name, and just incredibly well delivered.

Sitting in the hall, the adjective that came to mind was just commanding, in all senses of the term. Michelle Obama is in command of the material, and a commanding, forceful, fierce presence. She was also commanding the delegates, giving them their marching orders. In some ways, Barack Obama gets to come in and play the more hopeful, nice guy, and she’s like, Here’s the reality of what we’re up against.

She was saying, essentially, consider this your invitation. Don’t get offended if somebody doesn’t call you from the campaign. Don’t be pampered. Don’t be coddled. Don’t be a whiny little bitch, basically.

She has a different kind of authority. It’s totally not a conventional political authority at all. It’s a moral authority.

Honestly, I hear a little bit of grievance. A little bit of, Everybody always said I was not up to it for one reason or another, and that he was always counted out. He was elected at 29, and turned 30 just in time for his swearing in. And by the way, his daughter and wife were killed in a car accident just after that. These are among the many trials and tribulations of his astonishingly epic career. And then they said he was too old. So I think he’s still saying, you guys got it wrong. How did you read it?

I mean, he doesn’t really think he’s too old to be president. He made a decision that was tremendously hard, and there was an enormous amount of valor and self sacrifice in having made that decision. If you claim on one side that he selflessly walked away, or on the other that he was forced out, that doesn’t really capture it. It’s in the middle somewhere. Given his druthers, he still thinks he could do another four years.

No matter what the reality is, Joe Biden, consummate politician, has accepted the role that he’s been returned to, which is as a supporting player for a more charismatic politician who’s potentially historic. We have this pageant of unity, and of passing of the torch, but the reality is, a month ago, this guy was fighting like hell to hold on to this job. He didn’t think he should have to give it up. And as much as we fault Trump & Co. for living in alternative reality, it’s hard to find a Democrat now who ever thought it was a good idea for Joe Biden to run again. Not more than three weeks ago, even after the disastrous debate, a lot of these people were absolutely insisting he was the right guy to run.

And screaming at anyone who made the opposite argument.

Some of our colleagues in the press were doing the same thing, and now everybody’s pretending they weren’t saying that stuff. And I’m a little angry about that—we should hold people accountable for that! Joe Biden is an extraordinary American figure, and yet I think he failed the fundamental duty of an institutional leader, which is that he didn’t prepare a successor, he didn’t step aside at the right moment in order to ensure continuity. And if Kamala Harris wins, Joe Biden is incredibly lucky. If she doesn’t, I think that’s Joe Biden’s fault. I don’t think that’s Kamala Harris’s fault.

Maybe for some of us white male voters, too. I thought she delivered a really effective speech. Remember that in 2016, you had this huge schism in the party, with Bernie and Hillary, and Hillary was a complicated figure as the spouse of a former president and very much associated with the establishment. But all of that has now been forgotten or set aside, I think. And she was received back with all honor and enthusiasm.

Back in 2016, nobody knew what a menace Trump would be. The great Bernie-Hillary cleavage was taking place in the fall of 2015, when people still thought Well, somebody’s still going to beat Trump. By the time you got to the summer of that convention, it was a very divided party still. But we don’t have that anymore.

That was another striking note. When Bernie spoke the other night, he did nothing but give his full-throated support to Kamala Harris—of whom, I don’t think, he is a huge fan. And the other thing is that speaker after speaker was stressing Kamala Harris’s toughness as a prosecutor, and all the people she put behind bars. We’re back to tough on crime, tough on the sources of crime. That’s not the party of 2016. It’s even completely different from the party of 2020. If you showed the party of 2020 what they’re saying now, in 2024, about Kamala Harris, people would be horrified. But perhaps it’s just the recognition of the menace that Donald Trump presents.

It’s amazing. In 2019, when she started her primary campaign, she was going to be Kamala Harris for the people, the tough prosecutor—and then quickly she got convinced that you couldn’t win a Democratic primary by being Kamala the Cop, and so she bent over backwards to get right with progressives. And then it turned out that the moderate guy in the party won. But I think the truth is that Kamala Harris for the people is the real Kamala Harris. You can quibble with her criminal justice record, but that is the suit that fits her. It’s interesting that she’s fully embraced the thing that she fully ran away from.