Hey, good morning. I'm playbook co-author Rachel Bade. It's Friday, July 12th, and here's what's driving the day.

As the Democratic Party royals in crisis, President Joe Biden hosting a high-stakes news conference last night, eager to prove that he's up for four more years.

The reviews are in. While it certainly started off rocky, Biden found a

groove and the presser wasn't nearly as bad as a lot of Democrats thought it would be. The question

now is, does it stop the bleeding and will it unify the party behind him? And joining me now to

discuss all of this is our White House reporter, Maya Ward, who is actually in the room last night.

Hey, Maya.

Hey there.

So this was obviously a huge moment for Biden.

But before we get to last night, just walk us through the last few days leading up to this moment.

Just thinking about last Friday, where we were a week ago, you know, the ABC interview.

And then over the weekend,

there was just this like eerie silence from top voices in the party. And it felt like everyone was bracing for Monday and what was going to happen when lawmakers came back to the hill. And,

I mean, it was clear that the White House was trying to get ahead of that. They had this huge week at NATO that they wanted to highlight. We had the president with his surprise appearance on Morning Joe and that letter to the Hill on Monday, just, you know, saying like he is not going to drop out of the race. And then on Tuesday, he has a strong speech to kick off NATO. You see the, you know, congressional

black caucus come out support, the congressional Hispanic caucus. And it felt like a moment.

It was somewhat quiet and that maybe they were able to stop the bleeding at least temporarily.

And then on Wednesday, I was in the president's pool. He had another

huge day at NATO. We see Pelosi go on MSNBC, you know, sidestep a question about his candidacy.

There's George Clooney, calls for him to drop out. And it just felt like all hell broke loose.

And then it's Thursday and all day just felt like this tension was building between the White House, you know, the president's closest advisors and other members of his team.

And then as well as the Democratic Party.

And then he has to go out there, you know, with all of this for this major

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