Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest. I’m Tara Palmeri.

We’re exactly one week away from the first presidential debate, and the stakes feel incredibly high even though both candidates are entirely known quantities. Will we get a second debate in September? Given all of the hoopla Trump has ginned up around his veep casting, he’ll at least have that card to play if he suddenly needs to avert the media’s attention. Until then, we hold our breath…

🎧 On Tuesday, Variety co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh spilled the tea on my podcast, Somebody’s Gotta Win, about the six (!) separate interviews he did with Trump for his new book, Apprentice in Wonderland—and why he thinks Doug Burgum is likely to win the veepstakes. And today, I have a new episode with Gen Z political influencer and former R.F.K. Jr. staffer Link Lauren, about the impending Kennedy oppo dump.

Tonight, I’ve got the download on all the voices in Trump’s ears as his V.P. pick looms.

But first, here’s Abby Livingston’s latest dispatch from the political ad wars…

• The N.R.C.C. war chest: This May, the House G.O.P. raised $12.6 million, $2.6 million more than they raised in April and good enough to top the Democrats’ $11.9 million, a rare monthly fundraising win for the red team. (Trump’s verdict was handed down on May 30.) The N.R.C.C. previously announced that it raised $1 million in the week after the trial, but we’ll have to wait until June reports are filed next month for a more complete sense of the post-verdict windfall.

  Meanwhile, a handful of vulnerable House Republicans have already filed campaign finance reports that include the trial aftermath. Of the incumbents whose fundraising numbers are already available—mostly New York Republicans, who are obligated to file their finance reports for transparency reasons ahead of next week’s primary—there doesn’t appear to be a huge bounce for individual campaigns. We will know more on July 15, when all House and Senate candidates file their second-quarter reports. As for the committees, Democrats have held on to their cash-on-hand advantage, posting $78.8 million compared to the N.R.C.C.’s $64.6 million.

• Biden’s firing squad: Some Democrats have tried to distance themselves from Biden in tough general election races, but he’s a popular guy in primary ads—particularly for candidates hoping to take out members of the Squad. Wesley Bell, who’s challenging Cori Bush in Missouri’s August primary, has a new ad containing a pointed critique of Bush: “You can’t just cheer from the bleachers. You’ve got to be a team player who stands with President Biden.” A thousand miles away, the same refrain is playing in New York’s Westchester suburbs and the Bronx, where airwaves are jammed with AIPAC-aligned ads alleging that “Jamaal Bowman has his own agenda and refuses to compromise, even with President Biden.”

  A much more personal version of the ad aired in Pennsylvania this spring against Summer Lee: “Representative Summer Lee is opposing President Biden,” a narrator intoned. “She and the Squad gave him the cold shoulder at the State of the Union, refusing to stand in support of his reelection. She has repeatedly called him a racist.” It didn’t work—Lee won that race by 21 points. Of course, come this fall, we’re likely to see a deluge of Biden mentions in Republican ads against Democrats, given Biden’s struggles with swing state polling.

Of course, the people with the most sway tend to be those with major media platforms, or a lot of money, or both—a fact not lost on Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, former colleagues and frenemies who are lobbying hard for their candidates. Nor is it lost on Rupert Murdoch, who has fallen out with Trump over the years but is still finding ways to put his finger on the scale via Fox News and the New York Post, according to sources… even if a Murdoch thumbs-up could backfire.

Perhaps none of these men will be decisive in persuading Trump—who, I’m told, has already narrowed down his V.P. pool to three candidates. But their tug-of-war is representative of the battle for influence over the future of Republican politics, both within the party and the Murdoch media universe. Carlson, for one, has been advocating for his fellow “America First” isolationist, Senator J.D. Vance, seen by many as someone who could inherit Trump’s mantle. The former president has warmed to Vance, albeit slowly. During his Ohio Senate primary in 2022, even with a push from Donald Jr., it took six weeks for Trump to endorse Vance, who was low on cash and trailing in the polls. A year later, the Fox-Dominion defamation suit revealed that Carlson had sent a text about hating Trump “passionately.” But Don Jr. worked to repair the relationship, Carlson endorsed Trump, and now they speak frequently. “Trump craves his approval because he’s a high WASP,” said a longtime Trump advisor. Said Trump’s campaign spokesperson Jason Miller: “President Trump is a big fan of Tucker Carlson, and I think the feeling is mutual.”

Carlson and Don Jr. aren’t the only media figures in Trump’s ear urging him to choose the 39-year-old Hillbilly Elegy author. Charlie Kirk, the founder of conservative youth movement Turning Point USA, says he speaks to Trump two to three times a week, and that he has made the pitch for Vance. “He’s been very impressed with J.D.’s ability to defend him publicly on TV in adversarial and kind of difficult environments,” Kirk told me. “I think he’s looking for a Rust Belt boost. He’s the only candidate that has ties to that region.”

Meanwhile, multiple sources tell me that Hannity is pushing hard for Trump to select Marco Rubio as his running mate. Trump and Hannity have a history of pillow talk, gabbing about policy, personnel, and endorsements. And there are a number of other trusted voices in Trump’s inner circle who are echoing the Rubio line. Influential voices in the donor community see him as a moderating, Nikki Haley type—I’m told by a major bundler that they’re wary of Vance’s isolationism, and that they would prefer someone who is more experienced. Rubio also has advocates in Trump’s trusted campaign manager Susie Wiles, who worked on Rubio’s Senate campaigns, and Kellyanne Conway, who has also been pushing Tim Scott. Some have argued that Rubio softens Trump, and may help maintain his gains with Hispanic voters. (“Hannity has always been close to Rubio,” said a Vance proponent, pointing to their joint efforts in 2013 to advance an “amnesty” bill.)

Of course, Hannity’s past influence with Trump could backfire, too. It was Hannity, after all, who convinced Trump to endorse Mehmet Oz in his 2022 Senate primary against former Bridgewater C.E.O. Dave McCormick—the husband of Trump’s former aide Dina Powell, who also had a lineup of Trump allies working for him including Hope Hicks, Stephen Miller, and Cliff Sims. Oz went on to lose, badly, to John Fetterman, flipping the seat to Democrats. Trump still muses about the loss, and may look askance at Hannity’s touting of Rubio. “It burned him with Trump,” said a source familiar.

Indeed, if there’s a tussle for influence between Hannity and Carlson, longtime Trump aides predict the former president would lean toward Carlson, because he’s the kind of country club Republican whose approval Trump craves—unlike Hannity, an outer borough guy just like himself. When I brought up Carlson’s infamous text messages, a Trump advisor told me the incident just means Trump “craves his approval even more.”

Although Trump once sought Murdoch’s approval and media support, some close to Trump say that Murdoch’s multiple failed attempts to “make Trump a non person” resulted in a permanent breach. Yesterday, Trump blasted out a Truth Social post aimed squarely at Murdoch, telling him to oust Paul Ryan from the Fox Corp. board after the former House speaker expressed his antipathy toward Trump on Neil Cavuto’s show. “Murdoch tried killing Trump off after January 6, and he tried to kill him off during the primaries by promoting Ron DeSantis, but it didn't work,” said a Trump aide. “Who needs who more? Clearly, Murdoch. Trump doesn’t need him. Murdoch needs Trump for ratings. Who’s in the power position? Why do you think all of the primetime hosts are pro-Trump? Trump can cause a lot more issues for Murdoch than he can cause for Trump.”

Anyway, I’ve heard from multiple sources that Murdoch doesn’t have a preference between Burgum and Rubio, but that he really doesn’t want Vance. Hence the New York Post editorial this week naming Burgum as Trump’s “best choice” and Rubio as “a strong runner-up.” The editorial compares Vance to Trump apostate Ann Coulter, calling him “plenty bright, solidly right—but a bit erratic.” A day after the editorial, as if on cue, Fox News anchor Bret Baier brought up every anti-Trump comment Vance has ever made, including the 2016 text message to his (former) friend, Democratic Georgia State Senator Josh McLaurin, in which Vance worried that Trump might be “America’s Hitler.” Meanwhile, Burgum, a frequent guest on the network, was asked by Martha MacCallum on Wednesday about his 2023 claim that he wouldn’t do business with Trump. He sidestepped the question, saying he had “no qualms” about joining the administration.

In the end, of course, each of these individual micro-attempts to sway Trump will only matter in the aggregate. “All of these advocates cancel each other out; they all have their favorites. Trump will listen to everyone, he’ll listen to their opinions, but it’s not like [any potential V.P.] has 80 percent of the people he’s talking to supporting the same person,” said a Mar-a-Lago denizen. “Money is less of a driver, so it’s just going to be who Trump likes and wants to spend time with, who he trusts, and who is good on TV, that will matter.”