Presented by the American Petroleum Institute.

Hey, good morning. I am Playbook co-author Eugene Daniels. It's Tuesday, August 22nd. Here's what's driving the day.

Former President Donald Trump said he is going to be turning himself in on Thursday, one day after the Republican debate. In a truth social post last night, the president confirmed reports that he'd, quote, be going to Atlanta, Georgia on Thursday to be arrested, all caps, by a radical left district attorney, Fannie Willis.

The timing, no accident. He has counter-programming on Wednesday.

And now with this on Thursday, you're going to see the former president getting exactly what

he wants, split screens at the very least, and largely cutting off hopes the other candidates

have of getting a big media bump.

Some of the networks, I'm told, have already kind of started to scramble

for some special coverage. And late, late, late last night, the Republican National Committee

said that nine folks had hit the qualifications to make the debate stage, one of those

being someone who said he is damn sure not coming, Donald Trump, the others,

Ron DeSantis, the Vakramuswamy, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Chris Christie, Doug

Bergham, and Asa Hutchinson. Now, there are some other folks, Francis Swellres, Perry Johnson,

Larry Elder, who were kind of on the bubble and thought they might make it.

And that ended up not being the case at all. Those three guys, not on the debate stage.

But you would forgive them for thinking that they would make the cut because of how opaque some of the rules around the debate qualifications were, especially when it came to which polls

actually counted. And joining me now to discuss the kind of process from the first GOP presidential

debate is our debate guru, my boy, Zach Montalaro. Zach, good morning. How are you?

Hey, Eugene. I'm good. How are you? Yes. It's been a long

time coming. We are getting closer and closer to your Super Bowl, which is debate day tomorrow.

Now, Zach, the reason I wanted to have you on the podcast is that you were tweeting on Monday about the

process that the RNC has implemented for the debate rules and getting on the

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