DEM COUNTERPROGRAMMING THE GOP CONVENTION: The DNC War Room and Biden for President will hold a video press briefing at 10 a.m. today with Rep. VAL DEMINGS (D-Fla.) and KATE BEDINGFIELD to discuss the beginning of the GOP convention and the Trump administration's coronavirus response, among other things. The briefing will be part of the DNC's daily counterprogramming, with each day focusing on a different aspect of Trump's presidency. Other efforts include: paid TV and digital advertising and events in battleground states like Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Virginia. BREAKING LAST NIGHT … KELLYANNE CONWAY TO LEAVE W.H. … ANITA KUMAR and MERIDITH MCGRAW: "White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, one of President Donald Trump's longest-serving aides, announced late on Sunday that she would leave the administration at the end of August. Her husband, George Conway III, a fierce critic of the president, also announced that he was withdrawing from the Lincoln Project, an organization working to defeat Trump in November. "The Conways had spent years engaged in a public feud over Trump: Kellyanne Conway defended him on regular TV appearances, and George Conway skewered him on Twitter and in op-eds. But their public fighting took its toll on the couple's four children, including 15-year-old Claudia. "In a statement posted to Twitter, Conway said she and her husband were making changes based on what they thought was best for their four children. 'We disagree about plenty but we are united on what matters most: the kids.' she said. 'Our four children are teens and 'tweens starting a new academic year, in middle school and high school, remotely from home for at least a few months. As millions of parents nationwide know, kids "doing school from home" requires a level of attention and vigilance that is as unusual as these times.' "The Conways had been feuding for years, ignoring the criticisms from others, but only recently it began to take a toll on their four children, including Claudia. 'For now, and for my beloved children, it will be less drama, more mama,' Kellyanne Conway wrote in her statement." POLITICO … The statement Good Monday morning. DRIVING TODAY: LOUIS DEJOY, the postmaster general, and ROBERT DUNCAN, the chair of the USPS board of governors, will testify before HOUSE OVERSIGHT this morning at 10 a.m. -- NOW THAT DEJOY has said he will pause operational changes to the USPS, expect Democrats to focus on whether the USPS will restore changes it has already made. FRONTS: NYT … WSJ … N.Y. POST went with a photo of AOC putting on makeup and the headline "Face of the party" FROM 30,000 FEET … TIM ALBERTA: "The Grand Old Meltdown": "Earlier this month, while speaking via Zoom to a promising group of politically inclined high school students, I was met with an abrupt line of inquiry. 'I'm sorry, but I still don't understand,' said one young man, his pitch a blend of curiosity and exasperation. 'What do Republicans believe? What does it mean to be a Republican?' "You could forgive a 17-year-old, who has come of age during Donald Trump's reign, for failing to recognize a cohesive doctrine that guides the president's party. The supposed canons of GOP orthodoxy — limited government, free enterprise, institutional conservation, moral rectitude, fiscal restraint, global leadership — have in recent years gone from elastic to expendable. Identifying this intellectual vacuum is easy enough. Far more difficult is answering the question of what, quite specifically, has filled it. … "I decided to call Frank Luntz. Perhaps no person alive has spent more time polling Republican voters and counseling Republican politicians than Luntz, the 58-year-old focus group guru. His research on policy and messaging has informed a generation of GOP lawmakers. His ability to translate between D.C. and the provinces — connecting the concerns of everyday people to their representatives in power — has been unsurpassed. If anyone had an answer, it would be Luntz. "'You know I don't have a history of dodging questions. But I don't know how to answer that. There is no consistent philosophy,' Luntz responded. 'You can't say it's about making America great again at a time of Covid and economic distress and social unrest. It's just not credible.' Luntz thought for a moment. 'I think it's about promoting—' he stopped suddenly. 'But I can't, I don't—' he took a pause. 'That's the best I can do.'" -- ALBERTA -- a longtime student of the Republican Party -- will provide real-time analysis of the GOP convention before, during and after each night's program. The analysis will be available on POLITICO.com. BIG, MUST-READ SCHUMER PROFILE -- "Can Chuck Schumer be the majority leader progressives seek?" by John Bresnahan and Marianne LeVine: "After almost four decades in Congress, Chuck Schumer's political evolution may be nearly complete. With Senate Democrats favored to win control of the chamber on Nov. 3, the 69-year-old Schumer is poised to make history. He'd be the first Jewish Senate majority leader and the first New Yorker to hold the post. And no one would have served in Congress for longer until reaching the top; the man Schumer is trying to replace, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), did it in a brisk 30 years by comparison. "Yet the Schumer of today is a far cry from the Reagan-era liberal who won election to the House in 1980 and then embraced the mantle of a 'law-and-order Democrat' when he ran for the Senate in 1998. The self-described 'angry centrist' is no more. Once derided for being too close to Wall Street, Schumer aides now boast that he has stood up to the financial services industry. Schumer is still distrusted by some on the left, but the New York Democrat insists his views have shifted to reflect a different constituency, as well as the more progressive Democratic Party of the Donald Trump era. "'A good elected official looks at the needs of the people he or she represents and does everything he or she can to help solve those needs, and the world changes,' Schumer said in an interview when asked about his evolution since coming to the Senate. 'And the problems that existed, say in the '90s, are different than the problems that exist today.' … "'He doesn't have any core beliefs or core policy views,' Waleed Shahid, communications director for Justice Democrats, said of Schumer. 'Progressives are definitely wary of him and no one considers him a progressive. But that said, he has been making concessions and moving because he knows that's where the party is going, especially in a state as blue as New York.'" POLITICO THE NEW YORKER'S EVAN OSNOS on BIDEN: "Can Biden's Center Hold?: After a career built on incremental progress, Joe Biden is promising a Presidency of transformational change. The election will test whether his campaign can bring together a divided Party and a beleaguered country." -- THE QUOTE EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT : "In a recent interview, I asked Barack Obama how he interprets Biden's swerve to the left. 'If you look at Joe Biden's goals and Bernie Sanders's goals, they're not that different, from a forty-thousand-foot level,' he argued. 'They both want to make sure everybody has health care. They want to make sure everybody can get a job that pays a living wage. They want to make sure every child gets a good education.' "The question was one of tactics, Obama suggested. 'A lot of times, the issue has to do with "How do we go about that, and what are the coalitions we need?"' he said. 'What I think the moment has done is to change some of those calculations, not because necessarily Joe's changed but because circumstances have changed.'" BOSTON GLOBE ON THE TWO SENATE CAMPAIGNS IN THE HOME STRETCH … ED MARKEY by HANNA KRUEGER and JOE KENNEDY by DUGAN ARNETT CORONAVIRUS LATEST … -- AP: "Trump announces plasma treatment authorized for COVID-19," by Jonathan Lemire and Michael Stobbe: "President Donald Trump on Sunday announced emergency authorization to treat COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma — a move he called 'a breakthrough,' one of his top health officials called 'promising' and other health experts said needs more study before it's celebrated. "The announcement came after White House officials complained there were politically motivated delays by the Food and Drug Administration in approving a vaccine and therapeutics for the disease that has upended Trump's reelection chances. "On the eve of the Republican National Convention, Trump put himself at the center of the FDA's announcement of the authorization at a news conference Sunday evening. The authorization makes it easier for some patients to obtain the treatment but is not the same as full FDA approval." -- SARAH OWERMOHLE: "How the FDA is trying to soothe coronavirus vaccine fears": "FDA chief Stephen Hahn is stepping up efforts to convince Americans that his agency won't sacrifice the safety or efficacy of a coronavirus vaccine for the sake of speed — even as President Donald Trump is urging the agency to move faster on Covid-19 cures. "Hahn, the nation's top drug regulator, has been pumping out op-eds and popping up at scientific conferences in recent weeks to make the case for his agency's independence. 'FDA commissioner: No matter what, only a safe, effective vaccine will get our approval,' read the headline on a Washington Post piece Hahn wrote this month. 'Unwavering regulatory safeguards for Covid-19 vaccines,' read another, published days later in the medical journal JAMA. "Within FDA, 'the discussion has been: How do we communicate to the public and how do we push back on the misinformation — from all directions?' said one current health official. Asked about the president's sometimes contradictory statements about the vaccines in development, the official said: 'We just march forward.'" | 
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