Former President Trump is adjusting his agenda, the GOP platform, his vice-presidential plans — even his debate style — to win over more than a half-dozen persuadable voter groups in seven states, advisers tell Mike and Jim for a Behind the Curtain column.

• Why it matters: Starting with the debate, every Trump move — from personally editing the Republican platform, to lying low while President Biden's debate debacle sucked up attention — has been designed to nudge double-haters and truly undecided voters.

🗺️ The Trump campaign sees a clearer map emerging, with these swing states being hardest to easiest to win, in this order: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona. (You could flip the first two, but the campaign puts Pennsylvania first because it's the biggest swing state, and because Biden desperately needs it.)

• Job 1 for the V.P. nominee, besides raising money, will be to park in Pennsylvania to try to deny Biden the biggest of his Blue Wall states. The Rust Belt appeal of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) helped rocket him to one of the finalist slots to be Trump's running mate.
• The Trump-orchestrated platform adopted this week by the Republican National Committee targets very specific groups in these states — most notably Rust Belt, working-class, white voters ... plus security-focused moms who are skeptical of Trump's style but care about the border and crime ... Hispanic, working-class men ... and Nevada bartenders angered by high taxes on tips.

🔎 Behind the scenes: Trump wants and assumes Biden is his opponent. He tells friends Biden's debate performance and age are gifts from the political gods. No longer is he seen as the old, selfish guy in it for his own vainglory and personal power, friends joke.

• After debate prep with senior adviser Jason Miller and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Trump dropped the retribution threats and Jan. 6 celebrations (two things he has undeniably and consistently supported). Advisers have told him that both turn off swing voters. Some Trump allies find Gaetz creepy, but said he's shockingly good at channeling Biden in debate prep.
• Trump rolled the RNC on abortion (the platform doesn't call for a nationwide ban, for the first time in 40 years) and same-sex marriage (no longer a reference to "traditional marriage" between "one man and one woman") to win over voters he knows are wary. Trump sources tell us they tried to thread a needle of broadening the party's appeal without offending the evangelical voters who propelled Trump into office.

Column continues below.

The timing of Trump's effort to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, with 922 pages of hard-right policy prescriptions, was no coincidence, Mike and Jim write.

• Trump personally wanted to trash it just before approving the RNC platform.
• Project 2025 was drafted in part by former Trump advisers, and captures a lot of his thinking. But he complained that Heritage was trying to build credibility and clout off his name. Controversial parts of the plan could overshadow his more popular ideas, he warned.
• Trump wants all 20 pillars on the platform's cheat seat to either electrify his base or entice the micro-groups of persuadable voters his campaign is focused on. Trump — sometimes with a Sharpie or felt pen, sometimes over the phone with policy and speechwriting aide Vince Haley — personally edited every line of the 16-page platform, including commas and adjectives. Hence the Trumpian all-caps and Trump language.

🎤 What we're watching: Trump wants the platform to set the stage for the Republican National Convention, which opens Monday in Milwaukee. Reality TV star Amber Rose will have a slot. Early plans had 50 Cent among prime-time surprises, to portray Trump as connected to popular culture (think mixed martial arts).

• Trump always wants choreographed celebrity — the more surprising, the better. But it's unclear whether he got the biggest possible gets.
• The mission, which is reflected in the convention's four nightly themes ("make America wealthy/safe/strong/great once again"): Show Trump as more than white MAGA.

👓 Between the lines: Trump didn't get the post-debate polling bounce some advisers hoped for. Yes, his numbers inched up nationally. But he's still neck-and-neck with Biden, despite overwhelming Democratic fears about his age.

• Trump knows he needs to win over more men, especially Black and Hispanic voters, without scaring off more women.
• But Trump's advisers don't see moderation as the only way to win over persuadables. The new platform has immigration as the No. 1 and 2 issues, and proudly trumpets "the largest mass deportation in history." It's the one issue that plays well with almost every micro-group on the internal list.

The bottom line: Trump sees hypermasculine appeal as an edge. As a Trump adviser put it to us: "Trump sees Biden as a physical manifestation of Democratic policies."

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President Biden appears, for now, to have stalled the Democratic coup triggered by his disastrous debate performance — but at a potentially massive cost, Axios' Zachary Basu writes.

• Why it matters: If Biden remains the nominee and loses to former President Trump in November, as many Democrats privately and publicly believe he will, the failed rebellion will haunt the party for years.

👀 Cook Political Report moved six states toward Trump in its Electoral College ratings yesterday, leaving only the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as toss-ups. Arizona, Nevada and Georgia moved from toss-up to "Lean R." (Ask James Carville if anyone has texted him that tweet yet.)

• Publisher and editor-in-chief Amy Walter cited Biden's decline in national and private battleground polls shared by both Democratic and GOP sources.

🖼️ The big picture: Heading into the debate, Biden was already a historically unpopular incumbent with a narrow path to winning 270 electoral votes.

• It was the Biden campaign that requested the debate in June — the earliest in U.S. history — in a strategic bid to reset the race and draw national attention to Trump's flaws.
• The gamble backfired in spectacular fashion, redirecting scrutiny to Biden's biggest vulnerability: his age.

🔬 Zoom in: Two weeks into the post-debate meltdown, Democrats have found themselves in arguably the worst of all scenarios.

• Biden, with an approval rating hovering around 37%, is weaker and more politically vulnerable than ever. But he insists he's not going anywhere.
• The Democratic Party is fractured and demoralized. Its leaders have closed ranks around Biden, but the enthusiasm is gone. Many Democrats fear Biden could cost them enormously down-ballot.
• Dissenters — even Democratic celebrities like the "Pod Save America" crew of former Obama aides — have been tarnished as "Trump enablers" for questioning whether Biden should continue.

The other side: Biden's team argues that the president's position will strengthen once the election is presented as a binary choice.

🔮 What's next: Biden's solo press conference after the NATO summit tomorrow will present the first huge test of whether Democratic leaders were right to plow — however reluctantly — full-steam ahead.

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President Biden's campaign staff, battling low morale and disillusionment, held its second all-hands conference call in less than a week with Democratic National Committee staffers on Monday, Axios' Alex Thompson writes.

• "I plead with you: Worry less, do the work," California Gov. Gavin Newsom — brought on to give a pep talk — told the staffers, according to a video of his remarks obtained by Axios.

In her own motivational speech, campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon told staffers that the 81-year-old president had been personally looking over the stats of what campaign workers are doing in key states and urged them to keep at it:

• "We have to bypass the narrative out there."

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President Biden wants to use this week's NATO summit in Washington to reassert his leadership over two anxious audiences:

• The Democratic Party and Western allies unsure of what to make of the unfolding political crisis, Axios' Barak Ravid writes.

Why it matters: The summit, which kicked off yesterday and commemorates 75 years since the alliance was established, is Biden's first major international event since last month's debate.

• Many NATO leaders and diplomats are privately eager to see Biden up close, having tracked the fallout from afar.

The intrigue: "People are coming to witness whether Biden is or is no longer [in charge]," one European diplomat said.

👀 Behind the scenes: European officials and diplomats have expressed fears about the situation in private, especially given their growing anxiety about the possibility that former President Trump will return to the White House.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is among the leaders who watched the presidential debate and is concerned about the situation, according to a Ukrainian source.

🎤 In his speech at the opening ceremony last night, Biden spoke forcefully — even shouting at some points — about Western resolve and Russia's failure to defeat Ukraine.

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The Slacker generation might have been slacking off when it came to planning for retirement: Gen X consistently ranks as the least-prepared group, Axios' Felix Salmon writes.

• 68% of American savers say they're on track to retire with the lifestyle they want, according to a BlackRock survey.
• Gen X is the outlier, lagging all other generations.

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Kicking off our new weekly Future of Defense newsletter today, Axios' Colin Demarest isolates these huge trends:

1. The unmanned obsession. With advances in drones, robotics, wayfinding and more, militaries are increasingly deploying uncrewed technologies.
2. Transparent battlefields. Hiding is becoming impossible. Infrared imaging, deep sensing, satellite photography, open-source intelligence and more all betray troop positions.
3. Industry disruptors. A consolidated defense industry, long dominated by a handful of household names, is being rattled by small, scrappy competitors and Silicon Valley speed.
4. AI boom or bust. AI is reshaping daily lives. Its military applications promise to be far more radical.
5. A new space race. A global surveillance and communications competition is underway, abetted by a booming commercial sector and a hunger for faraway insights. As one expert told me: "Space capabilities are the difference between being a regional power and being a global power."

📆 Join me tomorrow at 8:15 a.m. in D.C. to celebrate the newsletter's launch with an event featuring conversations with former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and more. RSVP here.

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The San Diego Zoo's new pair of pandas — seen above in their first official pics — are "acclimating well" to their new habitat since their arrival late last month, Axios San Diego's Kate Murphy writes.

• It'll be several weeks before the public can see them.

In addition to feeding them fresh bamboo, zoo staff created a local adaptation of wowotou, a traditional Chinese bun also called "panda bread."

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