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IN THIS EDITION

VP debate, Helene fallout and Israel’s latest crisis

What will the House GOP campaign on?

Trump to hold Mar-a-Lago fundraisers as Harris rakes in money in California

Where the big money events are this week

THE TOP

VP debate, Helene fallout and Israel’s latest crisis

Happy Monday morning.

There are 36 days until Election Day. Today is the end of the third quarter, so get ready for lots of fundraising emails from candidates warning that they’re going to miss their goals unless you donate immediately. They’re not, but it’s always an effective message.

Yes, Congress is out. There are no congressional hearings on the agenda. There are lots of fundraisers. See more about those below. Yet it’s going to be a very busy week on a host of fronts. Let’s get to it.

Walz-Vance debate. Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) will meet Tuesday night in New York City for the CBS-sponsored VP debate. The 90-minute session is the only scheduled faceoff between the two. We’re going to hear a lot about who is weird and who is weirder.

CBS’ Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan will moderate. There’s already controversy over the fact that O’Donnell and Brennan won’t fact-check the candidates like ABC News did during the debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. The Trump camp was furious over that. CBS said it’s up to each candidate to fact-check the other.

Vance definitely has more to gain here than Walz. Vance’s polling has been abysmal. Some of his public pronouncements have been disastrous. Think “childless cat ladies,” immigration, and abortion. Walz will get pressed on why he didn’t go to Iraq in 2005, as well as his handling of the 2020 Minneapolis riots following George Floyd’s murder.

If Harris and Trump aren’t going to debate again — and it’s hard to see that happening right now — Tuesday will be a big moment politically.

Helene fallout: President Joe Biden was briefed Sunday by FEMA officials on the crisis situation in North Carolina and other Southern states following Hurricane Helene. More than 100 people have died from the massive storm and subsequent flooding, and hundreds more are stranded. Millions remain without power.

Biden has already approved disaster declarations for North Carolina and Florida, and the president will give remarks this morning at the White House on the federal response to the disaster. Harris canceled planned campaign events in order to return to Washington for briefings on the situation. Both Harris and Biden signaled they want to visit the region as soon as possible without interfering with emergency rescue efforts.

This is going to be a long, very costly cleanup. And there’s another weather system in the Caribbean Sea that’s heading toward the Gulf of Mexico. Of course, Congress didn’t include any disaster relief money in the latest stopgap funding bill.

Israel. As you know now, Israeli forces killed Hezbollah commander Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon on Friday. Nasrallah’s death was a victory for Israel and a serious blow to Hezbollah, the powerful Iranian proxy group.

The Biden administration wasn’t kept in the loop about the massive airstrike that killed Nasrallah, according to multiple news sources. But the Washington Post reported that Israel used American-made 2,000-pound bombs in the attack.

Biden told reporters on Sunday at Dover Air Force Base that he plans to speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Israel’s offensive in Lebanon. The United States and France have called for a 21-day ceasefire in order to avoid a larger regional war, but Netanyahu has ignored this initiative.

The House Republican leadership this weekend called on the Biden administration to “end its counter-productive calls for a cease-fire and its ongoing diplomatic pressure campaign against Israel.” This is the same message Hill Republicans have pushed for months over Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.

We’ll also note that Israel announced late last week that it had obtained an $8.7 billion aid package from the United States, including “essential wartime procurement.”

Israeli forces spent much of Sunday bombing Yemen in retaliation for a barrage of rockets the Houthis fired at the Tel Aviv area. Israel also launched airstrikes inside Beirut on Monday. That followed a weekend of attacks on Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon.

And by late Monday morning in Israel — early Monday morning in D.C. — Israeli special forces were conducting raids in southern Lebanon, which was largely seen as a precursor to a ground invasion.

Let’s focus for a second on Netanyahu. Israel’s killing of Nasrallah should provide Netanyahu a much needed political boost inside Israel. Netanyahu’s handling of the Gaza war has sparked massive protests, and his long hold on power is in jeopardy. However, Israel has just succeeded in significantly degrading Hezbollah’s capabilities without putting a single troop on the ground in Lebanon — at least for now.

And Gideon Sa’ar, a former rival to Netanyahu, has joined Netanyahu’s government, giving the prime minister an internal political boost. Sa’ar’s arrival should help tamp down on the influence of the far-right faction within Netanyahu’s coalition.

Yet Israel is now fighting a multifront war of indeterminate length with indeterminate goals. Next week is the one-year anniversary of the deadly Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas, and the bloody war in Gaza continues. Netanyahu is feuding with Biden and other Western leaders. Iran has vowed to retaliate for Nasrallah’s death. It’s hard to imagine a more precarious position for Israel than the current one.

– John Bresnahan and Jake Sherman

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BATTLE FOR THE HOUSE

What will the House GOP campaign on?

House Republicans left town with just six weeks to save their endangered majority. And some GOP lawmakers acknowledge they haven’t achieved enough legislatively to campaign on.

In a divided government, the 118th Congress struggled to do anything major beyond keeping the lights on. The GOP-run House was particularly chaotic, with one speaker ousted, the current speaker nearly ousted and nonstop Republican dysfunction the rule.

So at-risk House Republicans are instead shifting their message to narrow in on district-level accomplishments.

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) told us he’s advising candidates to push “a very personal” message and focus on “case work, community projects and meaningful legislation that they got passed.”

“What have you done for the people that you represent, not what we’ve done — because that’d be a very, very short conversation,” Gonzales said.

Here’s what at-risk incumbents told us when we asked what legislative wins they’d be pointing to in their final election messaging:

— Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), who represents a swing district in Virginia Beach, honed in on local results she’s garnered for her large military community, like raising the quality of life for service members in the NDAA.

“In my military district, I think those military and veteran wins just are really important,” Kiggans said.

— Rep. John Duarte (R-Calif.) singled out H.R.1, the GOP’s signature energy legislation, as his top priority. The bill didn’t go anywhere in the Senate.

“Americans got to know that a lot of our inflation [has] to do with abandonment of our natural resources,” Duarte said. “That’s going to be my messaging going forward because we’ve got to drill American oil.”

— Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) said he would tout his bipartisan record, which saw him ranked the second most bipartisan member of the House in 2023 by the Lugar Center.

— Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.), who’s embroiled in his own ethics controversy, said he would point to the fact that former President Donald Trump is now singing the same tune as New Yorkers on removing the SALT cap. Legislatively, of course, a procedural vote to bring up a measure that would have offered SALT relief failed by a wide margin.

Overall, we heard widespread frustration from House Republicans that their messaging bills died in the Senate.

“We’ve passed bills to address every problem that the country is facing. The Senate hasn’t taken up a single one of them,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said.

“We can only go so far without a Senate,” Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) said.

We asked Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a top Freedom Caucus hardliner, if there were any major legislative accomplishments that the GOP should highlight on the trail. His response was instructive.

“No, we just have to point out the differences in what we’re voting on in November. Far as this Congress, it’s kind of been a stalemate,” Norman said.

— Max Cohen

MAR-A-LAGO REPORT

Trump to hold Mar-a-Lago fundraisers as Harris rakes in money in California

Former President Donald Trump, who has been getting drummed in the fundraising game, is hosting two fundraisers at his country club in Palm Beach, Fla., in coming weeks.

The first is Oct. 12, which is a Saturday night. The event will feature former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and former presidential candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Vivek Ramaswamy. The hosts include Michael Bickford, the founder of Round Hill Capital; Cody Crowell of the Frisbie Group; Caroline and Omeed Malik; Bettina Anderson, who was recently spotted out with Donald Trump Jr.; and Nicole McGraw, a fine-art dealer.

And on Oct. 16, Trump himself will appear at an event at Mar-a-Lago that costs between $5,000 and $924,600 to attend.

Trump will need the money. Vice President Kamala Harris kept up her torrid fundraising over the weekend in California.

A Harris campaign official told pool reporter Jeff Mordock of the Washington Times that the campaign raised $55 million this weekend alone. That included $27 million on Saturday in San Francisco, followed by another star-studded event in Los Angeles on Sunday that took in $28 million.

Harris and the DNC raised a staggering $257 million in August, compared to $85 million for Trump and the RNC.

– Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan

THE MONEY GAME

Where the big money events are this week

Monday: Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) is hosting an event for the Harris-Walz ticket in Saratoga, Calif. Suhas Subramanyam, the Democrat running to succeed Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.), will be in D.C. for an event.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and former Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) are hosting a “lawyers for Harris” reception in D.C. Tickets range from $250 to $10,000.

Tuesday: Former Attorney General Eric Holder is hosting a Harris-Walz event in Miami. Tickets range from $350 to $10,000.

Wednesday: Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) is hosting a PAC trip to Dallas. Tickets are $3,300 for an individual and $5,000 for a PAC.

– Jake Sherman

THE CAMPAIGN

First in Punchbowl News: The Congressional Leadership Fund’s first ad expenditure against Democrat Dave Min in California’s 47th District paints Min as soft on crime. The ad attacks Min’s vote to repeal a state law that criminalizes “loitering with intent to commit prostitution.”

“Dave Min supported a law that made it harder for police to investigate sex crimes,” the narrator says in the ad. Min is running against Republican Scott Baugh to fill outgoing Rep. Katie Porter’s (D-Calif.) Orange County-area seat.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is running a football-themed ad, knocking former President Donald Trump for refusing to debate. This is an interesting ad, so we’ll post the full transcript:

The spot includes a clip of Trump missing a golf putt. This spot is running in North Carolina.

Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) vs. former Arizona state Sen. Kirsten Engel is a toss-up race. And Ciscomani is running a new spot, trying to blunt Engel’s abortion attacks. Ciscomani says that he supports abortion exceptions for incest, rape and the life of a mother. Ciscomani adds that he’ll never vote for a federal abortion ban.

– Jake Sherman and Max Cohen

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