Presented by Wells Fargo.

Hey, good morning. I'm Playbook co-author Rachel Bade. It's Tuesday, July 30th, and here's what's driving the day.

Democrats have been living on cloud nine, so to speak, since Joe Biden decided to end his re-election bid, and Kamala Harris rose to the top a week ago to replace him atop the ticket.

But Democrats are in for a rude awakening as Republicans are sharpening their knives to bring

down the party's new standard bearer. This morning, the Trump campaign is going live with their

first TV ad attacking Harris in swing states. They blast her as the border czar who is weak and dangerously

liberal and has failed the country. Now we should note that team Harris will be up with an ad of

their own here in a few hours and you should check Politico.com for more on that around 7 a.m.

But we're going to focus this morning on the Trump offensive, which comes as this media

narrative has sort of crystallized,

suggesting that Republicans are scrambling to find the best message for attacking Trump's new

rival. It all follows a brutal week, of course, for Trump's new running mate, J.D. Vance,

whose past comments on everything from police to abortion and, quote, childless cat ladies,

have made Democrats positively giddy

about their luck recently. But I got to tell you, Trump insiders I talked to last night,

they're just not buying this doom and gloom. Far from it, in conversations with Playbook,

senior GOP officials dismissed this notion that Democrats have momentum as this media hype by a left-leaning

press corps eager for Trump to lose. And they remain confident that in time, this sort of sheen

surrounding Harris is going to fade and that their attacks on her record will sink in and

crystallize with voters. As one of these officials told me, what? So Harris had a good week

because Democrats are in such disarray that they had to force the sitting president to no longer

run for president? Has the Democratic base coalesced? Yes, this person said. But we have yet to see

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