Playbook: Trump hits the Jersey Shore

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With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine

DRIVING THE DAY

CALL YOUR MOTHER — First, we want to wish a happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there, especially ours.

ABOUT LAST NIGHT — It’s rare nowadays for both President JOE BIDEN and former President DONALD TRUMP to be on the campaign trail at the same time — a quirk of the fact that Biden does most of his events during the week when Trump is, well, tied up in court.

But last night, it happened. And the difference in how they sold their respective efforts was a perfect encapsulation of the ethos of their campaigns.

WHAT TRUMP DID: The former president hit Wildwood, New Jersey — which, last we checked, isn’t a swing state up for grabs in November — for a rally in front of thousands of supporters.

Yes, Trump repeated some of his greatest hits on policy — whacking Biden, China, the border, migrants and windmills, as WaPo’s Marianne LeVine writes. He even made some actual policy news, promising an across-the-board tax cut if he is elected in November, as Bloomberg’s Ranjeetha Pakiam, Laura Davison and Hadriana Lowenkron report.

But he couldn’t help but keep the focus away from those issues, as he instead …

… said that the criminal case against him — stemming from alleged hush money and business fraud — was a “sham” …

… baselessly alleged that Biden was “surrounded by fascists” …

… vowed to “stop the plunder, rape, slaughter and destruction of the American suburbs, cities and towns” …

… went on a sidebar about classic 1991 film “The Silence of the Lambs,” during which he talked about “the late great HANNIBAL LECTER. He’s a wonderful man.” [NB: As best we can tell, neither Lecter, who is a fictional cannibal and serial killer, nor Sir ANTHONY HOPKINS, who is a real man and portrayed him, are dead.] …

… compared himself to notorious gangster AL CAPONE …

… used hot dogs (“I just had one actually. It was very good.”) to talk about inflation …

… mocked Manhattan DA ALVIN BRAGG’s weight …

… and accused Justice JUAN MERCHAN, who oversees the case, of being “corrupt” and “highly conflicted,” as POLITICO’s Meridith McGraw and Myah Ward report.

Notably, Trump “avoided mentioning the witnesses or jurors in the case, likely aware that any public attack would violate the gag order imposed by Justice Juan Merchan.” He returns to court tomorrow. (More on that below.)

Also worth noting on the veepstakes front: “North Dakota Gov. DOUG BURGUM was a surprise addition to Trump’s manifest as he joined the presumptive GOP nominee for a short flight from LaGuardia Airport to Atlantic City, NJ,” scooped the N.Y. Post’s Diana Glebova and Mary Kay Linge. “Burgum and his wife KATHRYN remained behind on the plane to speak privately with the former president before he stepped out on the tarmac and they all then motorcaded to a huge oceanside rally — in nearby Wildwood.”

WHAT BIDEN DID: Biden, meanwhile, focused on raising money, eschewing the sort of large-scale rally that has become a centerpiece of the Trump campaign. He wrapped up a West Coast fundraising swing that — between two big events in California on Friday and one outside of Seattle yesterday — raked in $10 million over 24 hours, a source familiar with the numbers told Playbook this morning.

Biden’s final event came at the Medina, Washington, home of former Microsoft president and COO JON SHIRLEY and his wife, KIM. There, he addressed a few policy issues, mostly avoiding making news (“I guess I shouldn’t get into all this about Israel,” he said at one point).

As ever, he preferred to keep the focus on Trump: “Folks, Trump is running for revenge. I’m not running on revenge, I’m running to lead us to the future.”

Thought bubble: Is Biden world listening to DAVID AXELROD? Back in January, Axe told Ryan how he’d advise Team Biden to frame the election: “You have two old guys running for president. One of them is consumed by his past, and the other has an eye on your future. That’s the choice. To me, that’s a compelling argument for Biden. It transcends whatever concerns people have about his presentation and so on.”

THREE OTHER STORYLINES TO WATCH OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS …

1. MICHAEL COHEN is expected to take the stand tomorrow in Trump’s business fraud/hush money trial.

Clever lede from the AP: “He once said he would take a bullet for Donald Trump. Now Michael Cohen is prosecutors’ biggest piece of legal ammunition in the former president’s hush money trial.”

The NYT on what to expect from Cohen: “From the stand, Mr. Cohen will tell of his greatest coup in Mr. Trump’s employ, the time when he paid $130,000 to suppress a porn star’s story of a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump. He did so, he will say, at his boss’s direction. And, illuminating what prosecutors say is the cover-up at the heart of the case, he is expected to offer his firsthand account of how, after the 2016 election, the new president reimbursed him for the hush money, but falsified records to disguise those payments as legal expenses. … Under questioning from prosecutors, his testimony could play out like a cinematic thriller, as he casts himself as a consigliere turned state’s evidence.”

Trump’s defense is expected to paint “Cohen as a rogue actor whose fixes caused more problems than they solved. They have promised to seize on Mr. Cohen’s credibility and criminal record — Mr. Trump is fond of noting that he is a ‘convicted liar’ — and portray him as a scorned underling seeking revenge against the former president.”

And the prosecution has “anticipated those lines of attack — and leaned into them. While the prosecutors introduced witnesses to corroborate much of Mr. Cohen’s account, they have invited those same witnesses to cast him as a bully, a nervous wreck and, as one person put it, a ‘jerk.’”

2. Sen. BOB MENENDEZ’s (D-N.J.) corruption trial opens tomorrow in Manhattan.

“Bars of gold, stacks of cash, a Mercedes-Benz convertible and foreign intelligence officials could all make cameo appearances,” previews WaPo’s Salvador Rizzo. “Federal prosecutors allege that Menendez and his wife were being bribed with those gifts by New Jersey businessmen who sought the lawmaker’s help paving the way for lucrative deals they had lined up with the governments of Egypt and Qatar.”

“To prove their case, prosecutors will need to tie those gold bars to things the senator is alleged to have done to receive them,” writes Ry Rivard. “It helps that prosecutors have years of the senator’s phone and electronic records, including Google searches.” Among Menendez’s alleged Google searches: “How much is one kilo of gold worth.”

One way Menendez could try to explain the gold bars, via AP’s Larry Neumeister and Mike Catalini: “The judge has yet to rule on whether the defense can call a psychiatrist to show Menendez habitually stored cash in his home as a ‘fear of scarcity’ response to family stories about how their savings were confiscated in the Communist revolution in Cuba, before he was born, and because of financial problems stemming from the gambling problem of his father, a struggling carpenter.”

3. Maryland’s Dem Senate primary between Rep. DAVID TRONE and Prince George’s County Exec ANGELA ALSOBROOKS is on Tuesday.

WaPo’s Lateshia Beachum has a smart read on the central role that identity has taken in the campaign, as Alsobrooks looks to become just the fourth Black woman in U.S. history to serve in the Senate.

“Alsobrooks has deftly navigated her history-making bid while rarely explicitly discussing race on the campaign trail and instead focused most conversations about representation on gender. She discusses motherhood and the opportunity to become the first congresswoman representing Maryland since Sen. BARBARA ANN MIKULSKI (D) who retired in 2016. She talks about how Marylanders should see themselves in a congressional delegation that’s largely White and entirely male. Her event schedule includes appearances at Black churches and events with Black fraternities and sororities, a quiet and effortless nod to the culture that’s shaped her and her achievements.”

For his part, Trone has “sunk nearly $62 million of his own money” into the campaign, WSJ’s Kristina Peterson reports from Silver Spring. At least $44 million of that has been on TV and radio ads, “including many featuring Black elected officials and Black residents who praised his record as a businessman and his five years in the House.”

Such spending has propelled Trone to a modest but generally consistent lead in the polls, with Alsobrooks within striking distance. Whoever wins will face popular former GOP Gov. LARRY HOGAN in the general election.

Good Sunday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.

SUNDAY BEST …

— Sen. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.) on Israel’s conduct, on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “Why is it OK for America to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end their existential-threat war? Why was it OK for us to do that? I thought it was OK. To Israel: Do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state. Whatever you have to do.”

— Sen. CHRIS COONS (D-Del.) on Israeli PM BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, on ABC’s “This Week”: “I hope Prime Minister Netanyahu is thinking about his legacy. Right now, his legacy is the huge strategic and defensive failure of Oct. 7, and his legacy could be a real gap, a break in the long, strong, bipartisan strategic relationship between the United States and Israel. I think that would be tragic. His legacy could instead be achieving regional security and peace for Israel.”

— Rep. MICHAEL McCAUL (R-Texas) on Biden’s threat of withholding offensive weapons from Israel if it goes into Rafah, on “This Week”: “For us to step in and say, ‘No, you can’t go into Rafah and finish the job,’ I think is tantamount to an arms embargo. It’s also very similar for us to say in World War II … ‘You can invade all the way into Berlin, but you can’t go into Berlin to finish the job.’”

— Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN on what the U.S. needs to see from Israel before a big Rafah operation, on CBS’ “Face the Nation”: “One, you have to have a clear, credible plan to protect civilians, which we haven’t seen. Second, we also need to see a plan for what happens after this conflict in Gaza is over. And we still haven’t seen that, because what are we seeing right now? We’re seeing parts of Gaza that Israel has cleared of Hamas, where Hamas is coming back … As we look at Rafah, they may go in and have some initial success, but potentially at an incredibly high cost to civilians, but one that is not durable, one that’s not sustainable. And they will be left holding the bag on an enduring insurgency.”

TOP-EDS: A roundup of the week’s must-read opinion pieces.

WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY

At the White House

Biden and VP KAMALA HARRIS have nothing on their public schedules.

PLAYBOOK READS

9 THINGS FOR YOUR RADAR

1. MIDDLE EAST LATEST: The major Israeli invasion of Rafah that the U.S. has tried to stave off for months increasingly appears to be intensifying. Israel told Palestinians living in major swathes of the city, which has hosted more than 1 million displaced people, to evacuate, per Reuters. And Israel said more than 300,000 people have already left for other parts of Gaza. But as more airstrikes land on Rafah, killing more people this weekend, many Palestinians have essentially nowhere left to run, WSJ’s Fatima AbdulKarim, Abeer Ayyoub, Stephen Kalin and Anat Peled report.

Still, the U.S. is trying to prevent an all-out Israeli assault on Rafah by offering more help if Israel holds off, WaPo’s Yasmeen Abutaleb reports. The promises include targeted intelligence to help detect Hamas leaders and tunnel systems, as well as shelters for tent cities for displaced Palestinians. “There’s no evidence whatsoever that it’s true,” Rep. ADAM SMITH (D-Wash.) said of the article on “Fox News Sunday” this morning.

Biden reiterated at a Seattle fundraiser yesterday that Hamas could get a cease-fire now if it just released the hostages. And NYT’s Peter Baker has a step-back look at Biden’s “long and tortured” path to a serious rupture with the right-wing Israeli government over its handling of the war: Despite his support for Israel, Netanyahu’s general refusal to heed Biden’s warnings has left him “angry and exasperated.”

2. CONVENTIONAL WISDOM: “Amid Scrutiny, Paul Manafort Leaves Republican Convention Role,” by NYT’s Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan: “[PAUL] MANAFORT’s move came after The New York Times reported that he had been on the ground in Milwaukee last week for planning meetings for the convention, as well as a Washington Post story that said he was involved in work connected to foreign officials and businesses. … ‘However, it is clear that the media wants to use me as a distraction to try and harm President Trump and his campaign by recycling old news,’ he said.”

3. TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE?: Ohio GOP Senate nominee BERNIE MORENO has often told a family story of classic immigrant striving: “We came here with absolutely nothing” from Colombia, he says, and he eventually rose to become a successful businessman. That’s not quite the whole story, NYT’s Jonathan Weisman, Patricia Mazzei and Simón Posada uncover. In fact, he “was born into a rich and politically connected family in Bogotá, a city that it never completely left behind, where some members continue to enjoy great wealth and status.” One brother is a former Inter-American Development Bank president who’s friends with the CLINTONS and JEB BUSH. And Moreno’s story is “familiar to the South American elite.”

4. CRUCIAL DEMOGRAPHICS: “Montana’s Tribal Voters Could Determine the Makeup of the Senate,” by Natalie Fertig: “Montana’s tribes comprise about five percent of the voting bloc, nearly twice the margin by which [Democratic Sen. JON] TESTER won his last race. … But the largest question looming over the Native American vote in 2024 will not be whom they vote for — rather, it will be if they show up to vote at all. … Restrictive voting laws, a dearth of fixed addresses, poor access to the internet, marathon driving distances in remote rural areas and general apathy all played a role in plummeting turnout among Native voters in 2022 … To rectify this, Montana Democrats are rolling out their largest-ever Native voting initiative.”

For the Biden campaign, older voters are a critical bloc — especially as polling shows him making unusual inroads with a typically more conservative demographic. The Biden campaign is leaning in with ads on “The Price Is Right,” “Jeopardy!” and local news, Bloomberg’s Akayla Gardner reports, along with “bingo games in swing states.”

5. CASH DASH: BARACK OBAMA, GEORGE CLOONEY and JULIA ROBERTS will headline a major Biden fundraiser in LA next month, NBC’s Monica Alba and Mike Memoli scooped. The celebs will also take part in a social media, email and text campaign to gin up excitement and contributions from grassroots donors. And BILL and HILLARY CLINTON will take part in a big Biden fundraiser slated for early summer on the East Coast.

6. THE ABORTION ELECTION: “Abortion ballot measures try to keep Dems at arm’s length,” by Megan Messerly and Alice Miranda Ollstein: “[L]ocal organizers and national advocates fear Democratic candidates, in promoting abortion-rights referendums that may boost their electoral prospects, could inadvertently doom the initiatives. It’s a particular concern in key presidential and Senate battlegrounds like Arizona, Montana and Nevada where ballot measure campaigns to codify abortion rights need more than just Democratic voters to succeed.”

7. ANNALS OF INFLUENCE: The artificial intelligence lobbying game in Washington has changed in recent months, and doomers warning about the dangers of AI no longer have the upper hand, Brendan Bordelon reports. Instead, tech companies and industry groups have pumped big money into persuading Congress that major safety restrictions are less important than competition with China — “and so far, they seem to be winning over once-skeptical members of Congress.” IBM and Meta have led the effort to rein in potential regulations at a key moment when a Senate legislative framework is coming soon.

8. BEYOND THE BELTWAY: “Schools are bracing for widespread teacher layoffs. Here’s why,” by CNN’s Katie Lobosco: “Schools across the country are announcing teacher and staff layoffs as districts brace for the end of a pandemic aid package that delivered the largest one-time federal investment in K-12 education. The funds must be used by the end of September, creating a sharp funding cliff as schools also struggle with widespread enrollment declines and inflation.”

9. UTTERLY PREDICTABLE: Speaker MIKE JOHNSON’s plan to create a bipartisan commission on the national debt appears to be heading nowhere, just like many other past congressional attempts to tackle the debt, AP’s Kevin Freking reports. Despite getting out of the House Budget Committee, the legislation has run into resistance from both Democrats and prominent conservative groups, which “weakened GOP leadership’s leverage in attaching the commission to an annual spending bill or other must-pass measure.” But supporters on the Hill say they’ll keep trying with other vehicles.

PLAYBOOKERS

David Pecker has an interesting history with John F. Kennedy Jr.

Lawrence Taylor was at the Donald Trump rally.

Nicole Shanahan didn’t say much at her own campaign-trail launch.

OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED at a party last night for Dmitri Alperovitch and Garrett Graff’s new book, “World on the Brink” ($32.50), hosted by Chris Krebs, Tammy Haddad and Teresa Carlson and with retired Gen. David Petraeus interviewing Alperovitch: CFPB Director Rohit Chopra, Ben Buchanan, Anne Neuberger, Rob Silvers, Lisa Monaco, David Cohen, Terry and Dorothy McAuliffe, John McCarthy, Nicoletta Giordani, Mary Ellen Callahan, Ellen Nakashima, David Ignatius, Jon Cardinal, Bruce Andrews, Andrea Mitchell, Lynda Carter, Mark Ein, Ed Luce and Niamh King, John Hudson, Sharon Yang and T.W. Arrighi.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Brent Scher, investigations editor at the Daily Wire, and Cassie Scher, VP at Rational 360, welcomed Sadie Shea Scher on Wednesday. Pic

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Colorado Gov. Jared Polis … Paul Begala … DNC’s Isabel Burgos … CNN’s Natasha Bertrand … POLITICO’s Shay Reid and Peter Cook … RealClearPolitics’ Philip Wegmann … Patricia Zengerle of Reuters … Joe DeFeo … Forbes’ Alexandra Levine … Miranda Kennedy … Jonathan Kaplan of the Open Society Foundations … Amanda Christine Miller of Under Armour … Kim Dixon … Erica Arbetter of Google … Kevin Fox of Rep. Ro Khanna’s (D-Calif.) office … Amanda Malakoff … former Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.) … CBS’ Elizabeth Campbell … Josh Cohen … Leigh Szubrowski … Jonathan Daniels of CRD Associates … Victoria Lion-Monroe ... Rachel McGreevy … author James Rosen … Madison Link Rees of the American Conservation Coalition … Penny Lee of the Financial Technology Association … Tom Strong-Grinsell

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