New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman assessed former President Donald Trump’s strategy for running against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid on Sunday.
In a video posted on the Times website, Haberman said Trump’s campaign was entirely geared toward defeating the 81-year-old Biden, who had a disastrous
debate performance against Trump last month. The former president has underscored Biden’s age and painted him was enfeebled.
“They believed Joe Biden would dig in,” Haberman said. “And they did not believe the Democrats would coalesce around Kamala Harris quite so fast.”
She went on to note that the vice president is leaning into the fact that Trump is a convicted felon and has been contrasting it with Harris’ history as a prosecutor.
“Trump is dripping with contempt for Harris,” Haberman said.
The video then played a snippet of Trump at a rally declaring, “There’s never been a lunatic like this in the White House.”
Haberman then explained that Trump is having difficulty landing on the right approach. Her analysis was interspersed with clips of Trump:
HABERMAN: He has described her as ‘”dumb as a rock.” He’s been trying out different nicknames for her, which is often a sign that he isn’t quite sure how to attack someone.
CLIP OF TRUMP: I call her Laughin’ Kamala.
CLIP OF TRUMP: Lyin’ Kamala Harris. L-Y-I-N apostrophe.
HABERMAN: Trump is pretty harsh about both female and male antagonists, but he does have a specific line of attack that he uses on women. He always describes them as mentally unstable.
CLIP OF TRUMP: No, she’s crazy. She’s nuts. She’s not as crazy as Nancy Pelosi. Crazy Nancy.
HABERMAN: Or describes them as weak, in the case of Hillary Clinton, saying–
CLIP OF TRUMP: She doesn’t have the strength and she doesn’t have the stamina to be president. She doesn’t.
Haberman went on to say that attacking Clinton in such a way was not as risky for Trump in 2016 because Clinton had been a public figure for decades.
“She had accumulated baked-in negative reactions with a portion of voters,” Haberman said. “Despite serving as vice president for four years, Kamala Harris is someone new to a lot of voters. She could increase turnout among Black voters. She could increase the gender gap that Trump is already facing.”
Haberman added that so far, Trump has decided to depict Harris as a radical liberal.
“That is the message that they want to frame,” she concluded.
CNN anchor Brianna Keilar questioned Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) as to whether he believed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Mar-a-Lago Friday was an attempt to influence American voters ahead of the November election.
The question was asked a day after Netanyahu met with
the White House amid his country’s polarizing military campaign
in Gaza and then traveled to South Florida for a meeting with Republican nominee former President Donald Trump.
Trump fumed
about Netanyahu after losing the 2020 election when the prime minister recognized Joe Biden as the president-elect at the time.
Many eyes were on Mar-a-Lago Friday as the two met face-to-face for the first time in years, and with the possibility
that Trump could lead the country for another four years, beginning in January.
During an interview with Auchincloss, Keilar opined the Israeli leader would be pleased to see Trump elected over Vice President Kamala Harris or another candidate.
“It’s no secret that Netanyahu’s preferred candidate in the field would be Trump,” Keilar said. “Do you see Israeli officials trying to meddle in the election here?”
Auchincloss said he did not see the meetup in Florida as Netanyahu making an attempt to influence voters.
“No, I don’t think they’re necessarily trying to meddle in the election,” the congressman said. “I’ll just say it’s a good thing that Netanyahu doesn’t get a vote in American elections.”
The Massachusetts Democrat then ripped Trump’s running mate JD Vance, telling Keilar:
But you know, who does get a vote? Those Haley voters in Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin, largely suburban women, who are listening to JD Vance and wondering to themselves what the heck was Donald Trump thinking? I mean, this is a guy who’s at the top of the ticket who already has bragged about him, been found liable for sexual assault now picks a guy who starts his campaign by insulting women who haven’t been able to start a family. This is a disaster by Donald Trump.
CNN reported on Friday that France’s high-speed rail lines were in disarray after a “coordinated sabotage” that left hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded ahead of the Olympics in Paris.
Anchor Boris Sanchez asked senior national security analyst Juliette Kayyem about the attack, which apparently took place overnight and resulted in several trains being disrupted:
Kayyem: So on the impact side, it’s going to impact a couple hundred thousand travelers, they think, over the course of the time that the trains are down. There are alternatives, lots of shuttles are being used. I’ve talked to a couple of the Team Olympic Committee, National Olympic Committees. They’re going to get their folks on busses, as is the U.S. Olympic Committee.
As to who it is, there’s high likelihood incidents. For one, the Russians have always been worrisome during this Olympics. But this is not the kind of attack that you would expect the Russians to do. They would generally use a cyberattack. This is more physical in nature. And so there’s been a lot of discussion about political groups, maybe from the left wing. And the reason why there’s people are saying that as you remember, Paris just went through this, or France just went through this absolutely quick and crazy election
in which they really did head off the far-right, but that there’s still a coalition government. And a lot of these pieces are not in place.
There is always, as you know, Boris, also an anti-Olympic sentiment for any city that’s hosting an Olympics. And those people have been threatening and protesting over the course of the last two or three weeks. So the officials will focus on it. In about, I don’t know, four minutes the opening ceremonies will start and it’s, I’m right above it and it’s plenty crowded.
Sanchez: Yeah, I can imagine now these attacks were described as coordinated, prepared and organized. From your perspective, was this at all preventable? Was this a lapse in intelligence?
Kayyem: Yeah. It’s hard to say. I mean, that obviously is a lapse in intelligence because we were not hearing that they knew of anything. Although I get a lot of these intel reports. There were discussions about concerns about this kind of vandalism. This was pretty well-organized. The one silver lining is whoever did it — I’m not defending them — clearly did not want a mass casualty event. It’s done in the middle of the night. It’s done in a way in which it was clear that the trains would not be functional. In terms of a lapse, this is a country, like most of Europe, is very dependent on rail. There’s rail lines everywhere. And a lot of them are vulnerable. They’re in fields, they’re in suburbs and, and other places.
CNN reported
on its site that the “malicious” attacks on the rails included cases of arson and quoted France’s state railway company SNCF’s Twitter/X post that explained: “a large number of trains were diverted or canceled,” and asked “all travelers who can to postpone their trip and not go to the station.”
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the prosecutor’s office in Paris opened an investigation into the damaging of state property and organized crime.
CNN anchor Jim Acosta and his panel cracked up at an alternative name suggested on a record-breaking “White Women For Kamala” Zoom call — the celeb-coined “Karens For Kamala.”
A group called “White Women for Kamala” convened a Zoom call Thursday night to support the presumptive Democratic nominee — attracting over 160,000 participants.
On Friday’s edition
of CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta
, Acosta played some clips from the call, including a suggestion from actress Connie Britton that drew laughs in the studio:
JIM ACOSTA: I mean, last night, more than 100,000 women participated in what was described as a, quote, “white women for Harris” call– that’s what they are calling it, that’s not what I am calling it — on Zoom.
A number so staggering that it apparently broke the call. Let’s listen to a little bit. There were some celebrities on it. Let’s listen.
MEGAN RAPINOE: White women. This is our opportunity to show up not only for ourselves, but for Black women. They’ve given us the whole playbook on how to show up and energize and be organized.
P!NK: I’m just really grateful that us women are going to have a voice and we’ve always made our voices heard. And now it’s time to just get extra loud.
CONNIE BRITTON: Interesting! White women! I mean, here we are. I have to admit, when I was writing stuff down, I was like, Karens for Kamala? I don’t know.
(LAUGHTER)
JIM ACOSTA: You’re all laughing. They’re — because it’s okay. They’re just having fun there.
But, Chuck, you were at the VP’s house yesterday where she honored the Latino community. So there was this very, determined outreach to the various constituencies of the Democratic, just coalescing it behind Kamala Harris.
And, I mean, we could I think we could all agree. Jeff. Karen, if you were to say, you know, was the Democratic Party going to coalesce around Kamala Harris in this fashion in just a short period of time that we’ve seen, you would have said, no way. That’s crazy!
But that is what has happened this past week.
CHUCK ROCHA: And it’s very different. And being with a small group of Latino leaders that were invited to her house a week or two ago before all this broke, you know, I give her credit for honoring her commitment. She could have easily canceled that and been somewhere else.
But she kept that to make sure she knew. And we knew her commitment to our community. And these folks are like my family. These are Latino leaders who I’ve been, grew up, grow up with. And two weeks ago on our group chats and all of our stuff, there was a lot of depression. Like we were worried about what was going on.
You cannot understand the palpitation of the energy around that backyard last night and what she was saying, like, it’s very different. I’ve been doing this for over 30 years, and what Karen got to is the most important thing, which is the energy.
We’ve all been running a campaign to beat Donald Trump. Now we can run a campaign to beat Donald Trump and elect the first Black woman to the presidency. That’s like gold dust to Democrats.
Vice President Kamala Harrispraised the Defund the Police movement in a resurfaced radio interview just months before she joined President Joe Biden’s campaign and distanced herself from it.
CNN’s KFile
brought new attention to a June 9, 2020, radio interview Harris, then a senator, did with Ebro in the Morning, a New York radio program. During the chat, Harris said police were being “militarized” while budgets for education and social programs were being cut.
“This whole movement is about rightly saying, we need to take a look at these budgets and figure out whether it reflects the right priorities,” she said.
The interview took place just weeks after George Floyd was murdered
in police custody in Minneapolis, kicking off Black Lives Matter protests and Defund the Police calls
across the country.
“We need to have this conversation and critically examine and understand this is not working,” Harris said. “It’s not working. So, this is an important conversation and not just a conversation – cause to your earlier point, can’t just be about talk. It has to be about forcing change.”
She added that “progress” is made by taking “to the streets.”
“Defund the police; the issue behind it is that we need to reimagine how we are creating safety,” she said. “And when you have many cities that have one third of their entire city budget focused on policing, we know that is not the smart way and the best way or the right way to achieve safety.”
The comments went further than Harris’s other public statements on Defunding the Police at the time. During an interview
on The View
the same month, Harris called for resources allocated to police departments to be reexamined and potentially given to social programs. She also praised the mayor of Los Angeles at the time for slashing the city’s police budget in favor of social programs.
Just months later, in October, after Harris joined Biden, Harris was distancing herself from the Defund the Police movement.
“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris do not support defunding the police, and it is a lie to suggest otherwise,” a spokesperson for the campaign said at the time. “Throughout her career, Sen. Harris has supported increasing funding to police departments and boosting funding for community policing.”
Ammar Moussa, Harris for President rapid response director, praised Harris’s record as a prosecutor and public servant in a statement to CNN.
“Whether as a district attorney, attorney general, Senator, or as Vice President, Kamala Harris has led the way to keep our communities safe, take on violent crime, and helped lead the nation to a historic drop in violent crime to a 50-year low,” Moussa said.
CNN anchor Jim Acosta examined the “Kamala IS Brat” phenomenon and took on the slam from critics that Vice President Kamala Harris’s “coconut tree” quote is “word salad.”
There’s a viral phenomenon befuddling the olds in the media
that has to do with singer Charli XCX and her album “brat” and the VP-turned-presumptive Democratic nominee. After President Joe Bidenannounced he would
no longer be seeking a second term and threw his support behind his veep., Ms. XCX tweeted
“kamala IS brat,” an encomium that many found confusing
.
Fellow kids know that the “Kamala Is Brat” trend features chartreuse-tinted fan edits of Harris that include her viral “coconut tree” quote:
My mother used to—she would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’ (LAUGHS) You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.
On Friday’s edition
of CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta
, Acosta and his panel talked about the energy around Harris, and Acosta pushed back on Harris detractors who called her quote “word salad”:
JIM ACOSTA: And Charlotte, a new poll shows Harris, pretty much just vastly outperforming Biden right now with young voters by 16 percentage points. That’s according to this latest New York Times-Siena College poll.
What is stirring this, excitement? I mean, I think I remember at the time when she made that comment about “the context in which we all live.”.
And so, I mean, people were, you know, criticizing that as being a bit of a word salad. But, you know, I’ve heard from a lot of younger folks over the last several days who just love that comment.
So, I mean, is it just like the older folks not getting what the younger folks are thinking these days? What do you think?
CHARLOTTE ALTER: So I don’t, it’s it’s a great question, and I don’t actually think it has very much to do with that comment at all.
I think we’ve seen since 2016, in the, in the, 2018 midterms, in the 2020 election and then in the 2022 midterms as well. Young voters do not like Trumpism. Millennials and Gen Z are not very attracted to MAGA at all.
Instead, the problem for this administration in this race has been that these younger voters weren’t particularly attracted to Joe Biden, either. And you would see in the polling over the course of this whole year, younger voters saying over and over again, we want somebody else, we want somebody else. We don’t want these same old, got two old white guys over and over again, not just any old white guys, the same two old white guys who ran last time. You’d see that over and over in the polling.
And I think, I think that what this polling shift signifies is that, these young voters just wanted somebody else. They wanted somebody new, somebody fresh, somebody who could credibly claim to, to help, to be speaking to some of their issues. And I think the Harris campaign is, is attempting to provide that to these voters.
JIM ACOSTA: Yeah. I mean, they’re really, exploiting this moment, no question about it. And see me after seeing all of these videos, Kamala Harris herself just joined TikTok. Here’s her first post.
VP KAMALA HARRIS: (Madam Vice President, are you on TikTok?) Well, I’ve heard that recently. I’ve been on the For You page, so I thought I’d get on here myself.
Jon Stewart kicked off his podcast The Weekly Show
by railing against media networks that have not agreed to let their reporters appear on his show.
Speaking with his producers Brittany Mehmedovic and Lauren Walker, Stewart was in complete shock at the show’s struggles to book media guests who already regularly appear on television.
“It’s difficult for us to book pundits or journalists that are on television. Their organizations will not let them come on our podcast. Let that sink in for just a moment. Organizations that rely on access and transparency refuse to allow their reporters to come on podcasts to talk about the issues of the day,” Stewart said.
Mehmedovic said she hasn’t been able to get a clear answer when she’s been turned down by networks. Stewart joked he wasn’t going to name any names, but he quickly identified the network as NBC, revealing a journalist wanted to come on the show, but the network politely declined, and then would not give a reason why.
Stewart also later name-dropped CNN, accusing the network of giving the show “a bunch of shit” when they wanted a CNN contributor on the show.
“I just want people at home to let that sink in for a second. News organizations stonewalled inquiries as to why their reporters are not allowed, are being restricted from just being able to come on a stupid fucking podcast and give their opinion, even as just a promotional tool as the reporter or the organizations they work for,” Stewart said.
The Daily Show
host said media networks’ hesitation to allow their reporters to appear on podcasts like his shows a “fundamental disconnect” in the ranks.
Walker theorized networks feel an “ownership” over employees and Stewart may appear too partisan.
“How is it possible that a news organization would not feel shame and bewilderment at using the techniques of obfuscation that they rail against from politicians and public figures?” Stewart asked.
He did manage to get one journalist for the episode, with Politico White House correspondent Eugene Daniels appearing alongside presidential historian and author Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Stewart wrapped up his network rant by noting that every reporter has responded positively to potentially appearing on the show.
“It’s bonkers! It makes no sense and I would think it’s an embarrassment to those news organizations, and the crazy thing to me is the journalists themselves think it’s insane,” he said.
Last week at the start of the Republican National Convention, former President Trump announced junior Ohio Senator J. D. Vance as his running mate. This selection has led to new scrutiny of the first-term senator. What’s been coming out since then isn’t defining Vance in the best light.
I’m going to table talking about the most salacious rumors (also I know they will quickly come up in the comments) and stick to the more grounded material. The one that is currently most in the public consiousness are Vance’s on the record comments about women (and couples) that don’t have children. I’ll turn to USA Today for the details
:
Vance appeared on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” in July 2021
while he was running for Ohio’s U.S. Senate seat
. The video shared
by the editor-in-chief of the pro-democracy MeidasTouch Network
has more than 18 million views on X less than 24 hours after posting.
Vance also argued in the interview that people without children don’t have a “direct stake” in the future of this country.
In 2011, a court decision in Alabama in the case of Mack v. Carmack
– in which the plaintiff had a miscarriage after a car accident – found that the Wrongful Death Act could be applied to the death of the fetus in the miscarriage. Years later, in 2018, a key constitutional amendment was passed in Alabama
declaring that “it is the public policy of the state to recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children.”
Although the amendment was passed to restrict abortions, the Alabama Supreme Court pointed to that 2018 measure to recognize embryos as persons under state law, saying the amendmentallowed for a more expansive view of the law at issue in the case.
“When it comes to the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, that means coming down on the side of including, rather than excluding, children who have not yet been born,” the ruling reads.
Also in this recent case, “lawyers have applied an 1872 law that allows couples to sue for wrongful death of a minor child. The Alabama Supreme Court has now stated that embryos outside of the uterus are the legal equivalent of a child, and anything that can happen to an embryo can be considered the wrongful death of a minor, with legal consequences,” Dr. Shaun Williams, a partner in reproductive endocrinology at the Connecticut-based clinic Illume Fertility
, wrote in an email. He was not involved in the Alabama case but has been tracking it closely as a fertility specialist.
“It is one more step that the State of Alabama has taken to limit abortion access, even though the goal of fertility treatments is to build a family and to have children, IVF clinics are the only location where embryos actually exist outside the human body,” he said. “The most concerning aspect about this ruling is that it will make it much more difficult for some couples in Alabama to overcome the devastating emotional and social consequences of infertility. Traveling to another state is often not feasible for fertility treatments which often involve multiple visits to a clinic during each treatment month.”
Vance’s comments only have served to revive this issue–especially given that IVF is not guaranteed to work. Additionally, they alienate people who don’t have biological children but are steppartents (including, I will note Vice President Harris). This is especially problematic given Trump’s historic unpopularity with women, including those within his own party. While Trump did slightly better with women in 2020 than he did in 2016 it’s still and ongoing weakness for him. From Pew
:
Trump won a slightly larger share of women’s votes in 2020 than in 2016 (44% vs. 39%), while Biden’s share among women was nearly identical to Clinton’s (55% vs. 54%)
What’s astounding to me is that this footage is not very old. In fact, Vance made similiar recorded comments around the same time. This is exactly what should have showed up in vetting and yet, so far, the campaign has not issued any response.
The book, Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them), was written by Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec. Posobiec is a well-known alt-right agitator and conservative media personality who promoted
the bonkers Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Lisec is a professional ghostwriter. And their book professes to be a history of communist and leftist revolutionary abuses over the decades—but with a twist. They claim, “For as long as there have been beauty and truth, love and life, there have also been the ugly liars who hate and kill.” And these “people of anti-civilization” have always gone by different names: communists, socialists, leftists, and progressives. The pair contend these folks—be they the Bolsheviks of Russia or the BLM activists of this decade—are better called “unhumans.” …
It’s a hard-edged message. The foes of conservatism are not merely misguided souls pushing the wrong policies but people who seek to annihilate civilization. They “rob” and “kill,” Posobiec and Lisec maintain: “They don’t believe what they say. They don’t care about winning debates. They don’t even want equality. They just want an excuse to destroy everything. They want an excuse to destroy you.” …
The book (with a foreword written by Steve Bannon) is a far-right declaration of war that accuses conservatives of not understanding that the left cares only about one thing: revolution to achieve total control. The unhumans aim to “kill the people who have more” than they do. As they put it, “On a base level, unhumans seek the death of the successful and the desecration of the beautiful.” They decry the far left atrocities of the past (the French Revolution and the communist revolutions in Russia, China, and elsewhere) and claim the same malignant force is shaping the present, noting that the “chief institutions of consensus-making” in today’s society “are controlled by radicals and infiltrated by unhumans.” The book comes across as modern-day McCarthyism: This dark menace has infiltrated nooks and crannies across America, from the boardroom to the classroom to even churches. No surprise, Posobiec and Lisec have plenty of praise for Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
In their view, the dangerous unhumans are everywhere. The Civil Rights movement? Mounted by unhumans. Critics of hate speech? Unhumans. The Black Lives Matter protests? Organized by unhumans. In fact, they compare the BLM protests of 2020 to the terror of the French Revolution, noting, “There is no way to reason with those who manipulate the have-nots en masse to loot and to shoot. They simply hate those who are good-looking and successful.” (Yes, they wrote that.)
Again, while this speaks to a subset of the MAGA base, perhaps even to some who read OTB, this is an extreme and potentially alientating viewpoint for more centrist Republican voters. And the book contains the following endorsement from Vance:
In the past, communists marched in the streets waving red flags. Today, they march through HR [Human Resources], college campuses, and courtrooms to wage lawfare against good, honest people. In Unhumans, Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec reveal their plans and show us what to do to fight back.
Again, this associate theoretically should have come up in vetting and still they went ahead with the selection of Vance.
At this point, I am honestly curious what the logic was behind choosing Vance instead of the more traditional Republicans who we were told were being considered including Senators Marco Rubio and Tim Scott and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
While some have suggested the goal is to shore up votes in places like Ohio. This seems a bit strange given Vance’s underperformance in the 2022 general election. From Business Insider:
While Vance won the race that November, the extent of his struggles was on full display on election night.
Vance defeated Ryan by 6 points.
But Republican Gov. Mike DeWine defeated his Democratic opponent, former Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, by 25 points. And both Attorney General Dave Yost and Secretary of State Frank LaRose were reelected by roughly 20 points.
Ryan was undoubtedly a strong candidate, but Vance’s underperformance relative to other Ohio Republicans was quite stark. One might even argue that DeWine’s coattails helped carry Vance over the finish line as Ryan clearly won over many voters who also backed statewide Republican officeholders.
Additionally, Vance also was on record of strongly opposing Trump before he came to be one of the former President’s most ardent supporters. So there already was a lot of media materials that could be used against the new Vice Presidential candidate.
From my perspective, beyond any personal affinity Trump has for Vance, it’s unclear what Vance actually brings to the ticket. Yes his anti-abortion and Christian Nationalist views are popular with the far Right. But those people were already Ride or Die Trump. What remains to be seen, especially if more alienating quotes come out, is the impact Vance will have on the more moderate wing of the Trump coalition.
To that point, Vance’s polling since the convention has been a mixed bag for Republicans. From Forbes:
A Reuters/Ipsos poll
conducted Monday and Tuesday found a slight shift in Vance’s favorability numbers, with 32% of respondents thinking of him favorably compared to 24% the prior week, though his unfavorability also increased, jumping from 30% to 39%.
An NPR/PBS News/Marist poll
conducted Monday asking whether registered voters found Vance favorable or unfavorable found more (36%) were unsure or had not heard of him—though numbers were different along party lines, with 51% of Democrats finding him unfavorable compared to 11% of Republicans, and 57% of Republicans finding him favorable compared to 18% of Democrats.
A Monday-Tuesday CNN poll
compared Vance’s favorability to what it was among registered voters in late June—before the convention—and found his favorability jumped from 13% to 28% while his unfavorability jumped from 20% to 34% and the amount of respondents who had never heard of him fell from 51% to 16%.
Note that all of that polling occurred prior to the “Cat Lady” comments coming out. Of course, there is still time between now and election day for Vance to make a positive impact on voters. However, that also means there is still time for more damaging material to come out. As usual, only time will tell.
