Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest. I’m Peter Hamby. Tonight, as Joe Biden fights back against Democratic calls for him to drop out of the presidential race, “coconut-pilled” Democrats are warming to Kamala Harris as his possible replacement. Would she save the party from ruin—or be a bigger risk than Biden? One thing’s for sure: Harris makes way more sense atop the ticket than faddish fantasy candidates like Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro.

But first…

🎧 Biden vs. The Elites: On today’s Media Monday edition of The Powers That Be, Jon Kelly and I weighed in on Biden’s incipient media war (and the final stages of the Paramount sale). Jon and I will have more on this surreal and roiling and historical political-media crisis on a very special Media Tuesday edition tomorrow, wherein we dissect the Morning Joe call and the president’s plan to manage this extraordinary crisis.

🏛️ Six outta 51: Also, if you haven’t already, check out my partner John Heilemann’s dispatch from last night on Biden’s challenged Capitol Hill math. The most memorable section, perhaps: “An A+ Democratic Senate source of mine reckons that, of the 51 sitting Ds and independents aligned with the party in the upper chamber, no more than half a dozen (including Delawareans Chris Coons and Tom Carper, as well as John Fetterman, who spent today on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania with the president after colorfully advising his party’s naysayers ‘to get a spine or grow a set’) believe he still has a plausible chance in November and want him to stay in the race. The ratio on the House side, as best as I can tell, is roughly the same.”

🎟️ Programming note: Last call to RSVP for the event I'm hosting this Wednesday in D.C., featuring pollsters Kristen Soltis Anderson of Echelon Insights and Margie Omero of GBAO, as well as Nancy LeaMond from the AARP. The conversation will focus on new data from a research initiative that aims to understand the voting behaviors of women over age 50, a demographic whose high turnout rates and significant share of ballots cast make them a crucial bloc. Sign up for Puck and email Fritz to RSVP.

Speaking of which, here’s Abby Livingston’s report on the chaos in D.C.…