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With help from Eli Okun and Garrett Ross

SPOTTED IN MILWAUKEE — Team Trump wining and dining with a number of top reporters at a steakhouse called “Rare” — and passing out pudding snack packs (a swipe at RON DeSANTIS’ “pudding fingers” story) as well as debate bingo cards to troll the Florida governor. Squares included: “dismisses polls,” “wipes snot,” “red ears,” “Dee-Santis,” “Duh-Santis,” “flip flops on Social Security… again,” “woke” and “pudding mention.” See pictures here and here

Who was there: Reporters Dana Bash, Shane Goldmacher, Kristen Welker, Bob Costa, Fin Gomez, Dasha Burns, Rachel Scott, Rick Klein, Josh Dawsey, Rob Crilly, Mario Parker and David Chalian along with Chris LaCivita, Jason Miller and Steven Cheung. And across the restaurant, feet away: members of Team DeSantis.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR TONIGHT — The real action won’t start until 9 p.m., but we already have an idea of what to expect when the curtains go up at the GOP’s first 2024 debate tonight in Milwaukee.

NIKKI HALEY will likely hit VIVEK RAMASWAMY over his isolationist-like foreign policy views. MIKE PENCE will lean into his own role on Jan. 6 and chide an absent DONALD TRUMP for putting personal self-interest ahead of the Constitution. CHRIS CHRISTIE will go after everyone and their mother. TIM SCOTT will more than likely be his authentic Mr. Congeniality self, with his aww-shucks-like quips and references to Scripture. And DeSantis will be taking incoming fire from all sides.

For Republicans who are only just tuning in, tonight is the real start of the GOP primary. And even without Trump on stage, the evening promises to be one for the history books, as the eight candidates seek a standout, viral moment to catapult them into second place in the polls.

SPOTTED (PART II) — White House hopeful and former Rep. WILL HURD (R-Texas), standing next to a Smoothie King in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport yesterday, railing against the RNC for keeping him from the debate stage. (The former congressman and Trump critic had been in the Windy City for debate prep.) More from Hurd in a second …

WHAT EACH CANDIDATE NEEDS TO DO — Our colleagues Steven Shepard, Natalie Allison, Sally Goldenberg and Adam Wren have a story that just posted about what each candidate needs to achieve at tonight’s debate.

• DeSantis has the most to lose (or gain). With Trump skipping out, he’s the top target for other Republicans, and he’ll need to reassure donors and voters that despite some punishing news cycles lately, they shouldn’t count him out. One thing to watch: he must be careful not to parrot the talking points laid out in his super PAC’s debate strategy, lest other rivals mock him for being a puppet. (Remember Christie’s evisceration of MARCO RUBIO in 2016?)

• Ramaswamy must show that he’s not just floating on a sugar high from recent polling. He’ll also have to prove that he isn’t simply in the race to help Trump — a suggestion he has denied. And he better have good answers to accusations that he has flip-flopped on a number of issues.

• Pence comes to the stage with the most relevant debate experience, having gone up one-on-one in VP debates against TIM KAINE and KAMALA HARRIS in 2016 and 2020. His challenge will be finding a way to stand out and find momentum.

• Haley faces the same challenge. Despite making more stops in early states than any other candidate, she has yet to see a sustained polling bump. As the lone woman on the debate stage, she’ll have a key opportunity to stand out and make an impression.

• Christie has been salivating at the opportunity to take a shot at Trump on the debate stage. But his challenge will be the audience members (both in person and at home), whom he must convince that it’s time to move away from Trump — no small task, considering the former president’s poll numbers. But Christie is a sharp-tongued, skilled TV persona, and if anyone can do it, it’s him.

• Scott, who has risen in the polls, has yet to see attacks from his rivals. Our colleagues note that he would do best to “coast” through the debate. But remember: Some of his rivals have been keeping oppo files on him (we wrote about this a while back). He may not be able to avoid their aim for much longer, and he’ll have to be ready. For more, read the full story here.

DON’T FORGET THE OUTSIDE DRAMA — A few days ago, Hurd believed he’d cleared the RNC’s threshold for the debate stage: He surpassed 40,000 individual donors and hit 1percent or higher in three state polls and two national polls.

But late on Monday, the RNC informed him that he didn’t qualify for the debate. Ditto for two other Republicans who thought they’d made it: PERRY JOHNSON and LARRY ELDER.

Since then, those three candidates have railed against the RNC. Johnson and Elder have threatened to sue. Hurd told Playbook — Rachael just happened upon him in the airport on her way to Milwaukee — that the RNC is “cherry-picking” polls to keep him from the stage.

“I’m tied with Nikki [Haley] … and Vice President Pence in New Hampshire … but they cherry-pick because they don’t want me on the stage,” Hurd told Playbook. “This is not just about silencing me — it’s silencing all the people that want to see someone like me up on stage.”

That’s just a piece of the infighting threatening to upstage the GOP’s big night in the Badger State.

Trump, of course, will also be a no-show, and is headlining counterprogramming with TUCKER CARLSON to try to steal the thunder. Trump allies including KARI LAKE, MATT GAETZ and MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE are here in Milwaukee and daring the RNC to stop them from entering the post-debate spin room. (Since Trump isn’t on the stage, his surrogates are only allowed in if invited by credentialed media.) And Team Trump is also in town, almost giddily finding ways to troll DeSantis, as shown by the bingo cards and pudding snacks.

Meanwhile, at least one RNC member is frustrated with Trump’s refusal to debate and perceived sense of “entitlement” about the nomination. In a private email to his fellow RNC members, GORDON ACKLEY encouraged his colleagues to require candidates to participate in the debates as a condition of their eligibility for the party’s nomination.

Good Wednesday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. What questions do you want to hear at the debate tonight? Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.

McDANIEL’S P.O.V. — Playbook caught up with RNC Chair RONNA McDANIEL in Milwaukee yesterday, and she defended the RNC’s decision to bar four GOP candidates (Hurd, Johnson, Elder and RYAN BINKLEY) from the stage, saying, “our rules were very clear” and “we put them out very early.” She personally called the candidates who didn’t qualify. And she said she’s not worried about an 11th hour lawsuit stopping the debate.

“I have nothing against all four of these candidates. They are far better than JOE BIDEN. I wish them the best. Their campaigns can continue. They still have time to qualify for [the second debate in] California,” McDaniel said. “But the rules are the rules … And unfortunately, they fell short for this debate.”

McDaniel, who dismissed the fight as “D.C. beltway” chatter, said candidates should be looking in the mirror if they’re angry. The 1 percent polling requirement was, she argued, “reasonable — a very low bar or threshold for somebody running for a president of the United States.”

“So maybe instead of blaming the RNC, they should look at their internal campaigns,” she said. “I don’t think many people woke up today surprised that these four candidates didn’t make the stage.”

Other nuggets from our conversation:

— McDaniel isn’t happy that Trump has ignored her pleas to debate, and warned him that Biden might copy the tactic and choose not to debate in the general election, as the NYT previously reported. “I think it’s important that we talk to the American people, and I believe the general election starts now as we contrast our party with Joe Biden — even while we’re competing to receive that nomination for our primary,” she told Playbook. “I do wish he were here.”

— She doesn’t buy into Ackley’s proposal that debate participation be a requirement to win the nomination: “We’ve had candidates skip debates — that can be part of their strategy. I don’t think you should force somebody.”

— She said there could be “consequences” for candidates who sign the pledge to support the nominee, then backtrack. “If they sign the pledge and then say, ‘I lied’ … that will impact them on future debate stages,” she warned.

— We asked whether the RNC will enforce the pledge if Trump is convicted before election day, and whether the RNC will continue to support him if this happens. “I think those are difficult hypotheticals and ridiculous hypotheticals, because we’re not even there yet,” she replied. “I’m not even going to go there, Rachael.”

— McDaniel called for the candidates to focus on policy tonight — a plea that stands out amid the schoolyard taunting we’ve seen between the candidates lately. “I really believe that Americans are hungering for policy,” she said. “They are hurting. … So I really hope we put forward an optimistic, thoughtful, positive vision for how we’re going to make life better for Americans.” More from our McDaniel interview

DEBATE BINGO — Are you watching the GOP debate tonight at 9 p.m.? Join POLITICO for live analysis and bingo! Whoever gets bingo first and posts a screenshot of it to their X/Twitter account (with #politicobingo) or Instagram Story (tag us @politico) will get a shoutout in the next day’s Playbook — and we’ll even send you some POLITICO swag. Get a preview of your board at politico.com/bingo.

DEBATE PREP

SOAKING IN THE SPOTLIGHT — Our colleague Adam Wren spends some time with Ramaswamy at his home in Ohio to explore how the millionaire became the most media-hungry candidate on the debate stage and propelled himself into third place.

“He starts talking and he doesn’t stop. He once did some 30 interviews in one day alone, and has appeared on more than 150 podcasts since launching his campaign in February. For a while, the only outlet he couldn’t get on seemed to be MSNBC, which had not booked him for an interview until recently, something that had clearly gnawed at him,” Adam writes. “This is what it takes to go from 0 percent in the GOP primary polls in February to 7 percent today.”

And while it’s clear that Ramaswamy’s “ubiquity is paying off,” Adam notes it is not only the volume that is driving attention, “it’s also what he’s saying that’s capturing news cycle after news cycle.”

THE TRUMP OF IT ALL — Trump’s debate counterprogramming via an interview with ousted Fox News star TUCKER CARLSON is a bid for both men to extract revenge on the conservative cable network. WaPo’s Sarah Ellison and Josh Dawsey have details of how the deal came to be: “The interview between Carlson and Trump almost didn’t happen, according to two people familiar with its planning. The men had been talking informally for two months about possibly setting up an event to draw attention away from the Fox-hosted debate.”

WHAT VOTERS WANT TO HEAR — There’s two incisive stories up surveying voters on what they want to hear from the candidates tonight — one from a national outlet and one from a local, though they share a certain theme …

— NYT: “Are You ‘as Tough as Trump?’: What Readers Want to Hear at the Debate,” by NYT’s Jennifer Medina

— The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Voters want to hear other candidates at the Republican debate in Milwaukee. But Trump looms large”

THE QUESTION WE ALL WANT ANSWERED — “With Little Chance in 2024, Why Are These Republicans Even Running?” by NYT’s Trip Gabriel

TRUMP CARDS

LAWS OF RETRACTION — Special counsel JACK SMITH said in a court filing yesterday that a Trump employee who monitored security cameras at Mar-a-Lago abruptly retracted his earlier grand jury testimony and implicated Trump and others in obstruction of justice just after switching from an attorney paid for by a Trump political action committee to a lawyer from the federal defender’s office in Washington, Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein write.

The aide YUSCIL TAVERAS’ “reversal led directly to new charges against Trump that Smith’s prosecutors included in a superseding indictment issued by a federal grand jury in Miami last month, detailing alleged efforts to erase the security camera recordings, prosecutors said.” Read the filing

MOMENT OF SURRENDER — “Rudy Giuliani still hasn’t found a Georgia-based lawyer needed to negotiate his surrender,” by CNN’s Paula Reid and Hannah Rabinowitz

THE ‘WHAT IF?’ SCENARIO — “What happens if Trump violates his Fulton County bond conditions?” by NBC’s Daniel Barnes

2024 WATCH

DeSANTIS DOWNLOAD — JOSE OLIVA, former speaker of the Florida House and a co-founder of a cigar business, is teaming up with the DeSantis campaign as a “senior adviser and surrogate in both English and Spanish-language TV media,” The Messenger’s Marc Caputo reports. Oliva’s first spin will follow tonight’s debate in Milwaukee.

ENDORSEMENT WATCH — Alaska Gov. MIKE DUNLEAVY is endorsing Trump, “giving the former president the support of a governor whose state is expected to hold its nominating contest on the all-important ‘Super Tuesday’ primary date,” Alex Isenstadt reports. “With Dunleavy’s backing, Trump has earned the support of three of the five Republican governors who have endorsed in the race.”

MORE POLITICS

LEO-NOIR — D.C. Attorney General BRIAN SCHWALB is investigating judicial activist LEONARD LEO and his network of nonprofit groups, our colleague Heidi Przybyla scoops. Though Heidi notes that the scope of the investigation is unclear, it “comes after POLITICO reported in March that one of Leo’s nonprofits — registered as a charity — paid his for-profit company tens of millions of dollars in the two years since he joined the company.

“A few weeks later, a progressive watchdog group filed a complaint with the D.C. attorney general and the IRS requesting a probe into what services were provided and whether Leo was in violation of laws against using charities for personal enrichment. DAVID B. RIVKIN JR., an attorney for the parties in the investigation, said in a statement that the complaint ‘is sloppy, deceptive and legally flawed and we are addressing this fully with the DC Attorney General’s office.’”

JUDICIARY SQUARE

FOR YOUR RADAR — “Activist Behind Supreme Court Affirmative Action Cases Is Now Suing Law Firms,” by WSJ’s Douglas Belkin and Erin Mulvaney: “The lawsuits, filed by EDWARD BLUM’s two-year-old anti-affirmative-action organization, American Alliance for Equal Rights, accuse the law firms of unlawful racial discrimination against white candidates. They ask the courts to remove race from consideration when selecting fellows. The law firms have offices in Texas and Florida. The suits are filed in federal courts in both states.”

SCOTUS WATCH — “Ticketed for being homeless? Supreme Court asked to weigh if punishment is ‘cruel and unusual,’” by USA Today’s John Fritze

POLICY CORNER

A NEW GILDED AGE? — “Child Labor Violation Surge Sparks Watchdog Probe of DOL Efforts,” by Bloomberg’s Rebecca Rainey: “Scrutiny of the DOL’s enforcement efforts to reverse a growing number of child labor violations across the country comes after multiple media reports and department investigations found hundreds of children working in dangerous, illegal conditions. Several cases have also involved undocumented migrant children.”

WHAT ‘UNION JOE’ IS READING — “UPS Employees Approve New Contract, Averting Strike,” by NYT’s Noam Scheiber: “Averting a strike that could have shaken the U.S. economy, the union representing more than 300,000 United Parcel Service employees announced Tuesday that its members had ratified a new labor agreement with the shipping giant.”

AMERICA AND THE WORLD

THE WAR IN UKRAINE — “Ukraine’s Forces and Firepower Are Misallocated, U.S. Officials Say,” by NYT’s Eric Schmitt, Julian Barnes, Helene Cooper and Thomas Gibbons-Neff: “The main goal of the counteroffensive is to cut off Russian supply lines in southern Ukraine by severing the so-called land bridge between Russia and the occupied Crimean Peninsula. But instead of focusing on that, Ukrainian commanders have divided troops and firepower roughly equally between the east and the south, the U.S. officials said.”

BEYOND THE BELTWAY

IMMIGRATION FILES — “At Texas Border, Some Support for Abbott’s Crackdown Is Waning,” by NYT’s Edgar Sandoval in Eagle Pass, Texas

THE NEW NORMAL — “Central U.S. Swelters Under Heat Dome, Forcing Cancellations and Precautions,” by NYT’s Mitch Smith, Lauryn Higgins and Ann Hinga Klein: “Even in a season filled with other climate shocks, this blast of late-summer heat in the Central United States stands out for its breadth and its combination of high temperatures and suffocating humidity — including in areas more associated with frigid winters than unbearable summers.”

Dark Brandon seems to be here to stay with the Biden campaign.

WEDDING — Katie Orlinsky, a photojournalist who regularly shoots for the NYT and National Geographic, and Jesse Goldstein, an associate professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, got married Aug. 4 outside the courthouse in Delhi, N.Y., in the Catskills. They spent the weekend celebrating with their immediate families at her sister and brother-in-law’s house nearby in East Meredith.The couple met at an artist residency at the Banff Centre in Canada. Instapics

WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist and author, welcomed Zayn on Monday. Instapics

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer … Kari Lake … Reps. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.) and Kim Schrier (D-Wash.) … NBC’s Mike Memoli and Julie Tsirkin … Stephen Miller … WaPo’s Alexi McCammond and Annah Backstrom Aschbrenner … Roll Call’s Niels Lesniewski ... National Association of Manufacturers’ Brian Walsh … Richard Chalkey … POLITICO’s Caitlin Oprysko, Madina Touré and Kadija Jalloh … Miriam Sapiro … Apex Strategies’ John Hall … Tom Nowlan … Rob Bluey … Jesse Connolly of Rep. Chellie Pingree’s (D-Maine) office … Brunswick Group’s Patti Solis Doyle … ProPublica’s Craig Silverman … Ian Jefferies of the Association of American Railroads … Jenna Alsayegh of USTelecom … Bryer Davis of Sen. Raphael Warnock’s (D-Ga.) office … David Wickenden of AARP … Jessica (Jensen) Ketner … former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam … former California Gov. Pete Wilson (9-0) … Herald Group’s Malyia Kelley and Todd Van Etten ... Merla Zollinger of the American Cleaning Institute

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