Presented by BP.

Hey, good morning. I'm Playbook co-author Eugene Daniels. It is Friday, October 18th. Here is what's driving the day.

For weeks, the campaign for Donald Trump has been in conversations with the Shade Room, a popular site among young black people about a sit-down interview.

You'll remember the Vice President Kamala Harris' interview was released last week.

We're told that no date had ever been set in stone, but the intention was to try and work something out.

The feeling among Shadroom staff at times was that the feet were being dragged on the Trump's side.

Or as one person familiar with the conversations put it to us, quote, the general consensus is our contact is trying, but at the top, they're kind of getting pushed back.

In a conversation earlier this week when describing why an interview hadn't come together yet,

a Trump advisor told producers that Trump was, quote, exhausted and refusing some interviews,

but that could change at any time, and that was why he was declining to nail down a time with

the shade room. That's according to two people we spoke with, familiar with the conversations.

To make up for the lack of a Trump interview this close to the election,

where it told rapper Waka Flaka Flame was offered as an alternative if a Trump interview was never nailed down.

Trump's national press secretary pushed back last night on the idea that Trump was exhausted,

saying it was, quote, unequivocally false.

President Trump is running laps around Kamala Harris on the campaign trail and has done media interviews every day this week.

He has more energy and a harder work ethic than anyone in politics, she says.

This comes as the Trump campaign has backed out of multiple interviews

over the last two weeks with more mainstream outlets. There's a lot more in the newsletter this

morning. And don't miss this week's episode of Playbook Deepdive, which focuses on all things

Pennsylvania. I caught up with not one but two heavy hitters in the Keystone State, Philadelphia

City Councilman Isaiah Thomas, a Democrat, and Republican political strategist Charlie Durow.

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