It’s Monday. The Olympic women’s beam and floor finals were INSANE this morning. Simone Biles and Suni Lee both fell on beam and Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade won gold on floor — Simone won silver. Oh, and Jordan Chiles’s fifth-place score was challenged after the competition wrapped, elevating her to a bronze medal at the very end.

Here’s what else is happening:

• Harris will announce her VP pick by tomorrow. She met with three running mate finalists on Sunday. 👀

• Stock markets dropped dramatically on Monday, and it’s already becoming a flashpoint in the presidential race.

• Republican senators think Trump was caught off guard by Harris’s strength.

• The New Yorker published a fascinating profile on RFK Jr. You must read the bizarre story about the bear cub carcass.

I’m Cate Martel with a quick recap of the morning and what’s coming up. Send tips, commentary, feedback and cookie recipes to cmartel@digital-release.thehill.com. Did someone forward this newsletter to you? Sign up here.  

U.S. stock markets dropped sharply this morning amid global fears of a U.S. recession.

The numbers:

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 2.8 percent this morning, opening with a loss of 1,100 points.
• Nasdaq fell 6.2 percent
• The S&P 500 index dropped 4.2 percent.

💡 What likely sparked the plunge: Global markets have been on edge since Friday’s weak jobs report. The Hill’s Sylvan Lane also pointed out that the July jobs report follows a number of lackluster second-quarter earnings reports from major companies (like Intel). Some are worried the economy is slowing down faster than predicted.

Read more on the stock market drop: ‘Stocks plunge as weak jobs report, tech woes rattle Wall Street’

In reading about this news this morning, I’ve been fascinated by all the verbiage used to describe the drop. “Plummet,” “crater,” “sink,” “went into a tailspin” and “jolted” — just to name a few.

Former President Trump blamed President Biden and Vice President Harris for the stock market drop.

Trump wrote on Truth Social: “STOCK MARKETS CRASHING. I TOLD YOU SO!!! KAMALA DOESN’T HAVE A CLUE. BIDEN IS SOUND ASLEEP. ALL CAUSED BY INEPT U.S. LEADERSHIP!”

Trump dubbed it the “KAMALA CRASH” this morning, and a spokesperson echoed the attack with a Venn diagram.

The buzz in Washington is around who will be Vice President Harris’s vice presidential pick. She will announce her decision by tomorrow at the latest and then begin a five-day swing through seven battleground states.

The finalists: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Read into this how you will: Harris met separately with Walz, Shapiro and Kelly on Sunday, according to NBC News.

👀👀C-SPAN’s Howard Mortman posted: “You may have seen reports that a motorcade with Pennsylvania plates drove by the Naval Observatory. Here’s the video”

How will we find out?: Politico reports that Harris will likely make her announcement in a video sometime on Tuesday. But keep in mind that there can always be a media leak.

Her plans over the next few days: Harris and “Placeholder VP” will hold a rally Tuesday in Philadelphia. Harris and her running mate will then travel to Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday, North Carolina and Georgia on Thursday, Arizona on Friday and Nevada on Saturday.

Axios’s Sophia Cai argues how Harris could put Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina back in play.

Overall: “Pennsylvania is still the most important state where both campaigns are going all-in.” Read the analysis of states in play

The Hill’s Amie Parnes reports that Democrats had once been concerned about whether Harris could beat former President Trump — their nightmare scenario happened in 2016 — but those fears have mostly dissipated since she launched into the race. She’s proving to be a different candidate than Hillary Clinton so far.

Read more: ‘Harris seeks to learn from Clinton’s campaign’

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told ABC News’s “Good Morning America” about President Biden’s decision to step aside. “I wasn’t asking him to step down. I was asking for a campaign that would win. And I wasn’t seeing that on the horizon.” 💻 Watch the clip (around the four-minute mark) 

The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports that “Republican lawmakers say the Trump campaign was caught off guard by President Biden’s decision to drop his reelection bid and that the former president’s team has faltered in responding to the surge of momentum behind Vice President Harris.”

And they’re critical of the lack of planning: “Some Republican senators think former President Trump should have seen the swap atop the Democrat ticket coming and crafted a messaging and political strategy weeks ago.”

For example: “They see Trump’s awkward discussion about Harris’s racial heritage at the National Association of Black Journalists convention as a clear sign the Trump campaign hasn’t yet hammered out a workable strategy for the battle against Harris.”

Another example: “GOP lawmakers also view Trump’s selection of Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate as evidence that the former president didn’t expect Biden to drop out of the race. They worry Vance’s outspoken views on restricting abortion and his claim that ‘childless cat ladies’ run the country play right into the message that Harris and Democrats will center their campaign on in the fall.”

Read the full reporting: ‘GOP senators say Trump caught ‘off guard’ by Harris’s strength’

Speaking of Vance: Usha Vance defended her husband amid broad criticism over his past “childless cat ladies” quip, arguing in an interview that aired this morning on “Fox and Friends” that the context of his past remarks was being ignored.

She argued the broader point Vance was making was that it is “really hard to be a parent in this country, and sometimes our policies are designed in a way that make it even harder.” Full story on her interview.

• ‘Harris Faces Party Divisions as She Chooses a Running Mate’: The New York Times
• ‘JD Vance’s Marine buddies back his service over his politics’: The Washington Post

• ‘Mark Kelly deletes tweet that fueled speculation about VP race’: The Hill

• ‘What’s shaping up as tension points between Harris and the left’: Politico

The New Yorker’s Clare Malone published a profile on independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The gist: “The third-party Presidential candidate has a troubled past, a shambolic campaign, and some surprisingly good poll numbers.”

A tidbit I’ve seen lots of posts about: Malone tells the story of when Kennedy found a bear cub carcass. He posed for a photo 📸 with the bloody carcass. When she asked him about the incident, he said, “Maybe that’s where I got my brain worm.”

Another tidbit — tell us how you really feel: “In a recent text exchange, Kennedy told one person that Trump was ‘a terrible human being. The worse president ever and barely human. He is probably a sociopath.’”

^💡 This matters because Trump and Kennedy had a phone call meeting ahead of last month’s convention. Trump was heard on a leaked video of the call saying he agrees with some of Kennedy’s stances on vaccines.

Read the New Yorker profile: ‘What Does Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Actually Want?’

It’s worth noting: Kennedy appeared to try to get ahead of the story on Sunday, releasing a video of himself describing the decade-old bear incident in graphic detail.

Throwback: @lutherlowe shares a video: “How NYC local news covered the dead bear RFK Jr put into Central Park ten years ago”

And here’s a screenshot of CNN’s broadcast about the incident at the time.

Hurricane Debby made landfall this morning in the Florida Big Bend, reaching 80 mph winds.

💡 Weather Channel updates

⌚ Debby’s current timing and path

Ugh: This image of the storm’s rainfall is … not great. Axios writes that Hurricane Debby is “posing a nightmare scenario for flooding across the Southeast this week.”

🦪 Celebrate: Today is National Oyster Day!

🥇 Aw, our DMV Olympian!: Time’s Koh Ewe writes how “Olympic Champion Noah Lyles Shows the World His Adorkable Side.”

🍿 This video certainly *has* aged well: Video of Michael Jordan playing peekaboo with Katie Ledecky as a baby has resurfaced online. She seems totally unfazed by him and continues to eat her popcorn.  📹 Watch the clip; 📹 Watch Ledecky explain the backstory to the clip

The House and Senate are out. 🌴President Biden and Vice President Harris are in Washington this afternoon. (all times Eastern)

• 1:15 p.m.: State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller holds a press briefing. 💻 Livestream

• 2 p.m.: Biden and first lady Jill Biden return to the White House from their weekend in Delaware.

• 2:15 p.m.: Biden convenes his national security team in the Situation Room to discuss developments in the Middle East. Harris attends.

• Tuesday: Primaries in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington. 🔎 What to watch

Because you made it this far, watch these dogs being told they’re good boys and good girls.

Send comments, story ideas and events for our radar to cmartel@digital-release.thehill.com.

View past issues of 12:30 Report here and check out other newsletters from The Hill here. See you next time!