A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Will They Never Learn?
JD Vance launched a spurious and baseless attack on Tim Walz’s military service reminiscent of the Swift Boat attacks in 2004 that targeted one of John Kerry’s key political strengths: his heroism and valor in Vietnam. But instead of using the last 20 years to reflect and reconsider the familiar coverage patterns, some political editors still get played like a fiddle when it comes to covering GOP attack lines.
The WaPo was probably the worst culprit, with this headline: “Tim Walz’s military record, National Guard departure get new scrutiny.” It happily launders the Vance attack line without self-awareness or historical understanding of the last two decades of American politics. “New scrutiny” – like its weasel-word compadres “raises questions about” and “is said to” – confers a miraculous virgin birth to scurrilous political attacks even if they’re launched right out in the open.
To its credit, Politico is much more direct and puts the attack in the broader context with a story headlined: “Vance runs a Swift Boat attack against Walz’s military service.” You might quibble with Politico’s handling of it, but it’s clearly not the same laundering operation the WaPo ran on this one.
The irony of the Vance attack and the media coverage of it is that the originator of the Swift Boat attack against Kerry back in the day was Chris LaCivita, who is now a senior Trump campaign adviser.
Can’t Memory Hole Project 2025 That Easily!
Further undermining Donald Trump’s bogus claims that he knew nothing about Project 2025, the WaPo has discovered a private flight (photo included) that Donald Trump took with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts in April 2022 to a Heritage conference where Trump seemed to reference Project 2025. The work of Project 2025 has been done under the auspices of the Heritage Foundation.
Meanwhile, Roberts has postponed the launch of his new book – with a foreword by none other than JD Vance himself – until after the November election.
On The Trail
- Kamala Harris once again tamps down a “Lock him up” chant, this time at her campaign rally in Michigan:
- At the same Michigan rally, Harris also shut down hecklers (y’all, that look at the 2:12 mark):
- Donald Trump has only one campaign rally this week – and it’s in the deep-red state of Montana.
Quote Of The Day
The Holocaust is taught too often purely as a historical event, an anomaly, a moment in time. Students understood what had happened and that it was terrible and that the people who did this were monsters. The problem is that relieves us of responsibility. Obviously, the mastermind was sociopathic, but on the scale for it to happen, there had to be a lot of people in the country who chose to go down that path. You have to make the intellectual leap to figure out the reasons why.
then-Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN), in a 2008 interview with the NYT, recounting teaching high school students in Nebraska in the 1990s about genocide
2024 Ephemera
- WaPo: Trump complains about campaign as advisers try to focus on attacking Harris
- NYT: Tim Walz’s Sudden Rise in the Democratic Party Was No Accident
- WSJ: Tim Walz’s and JD Vance’s Personal Finances Couldn’t Be More Different
Biden Warns Trump Won’t Lose Peacefully
In his first interview since ending his re-election bid, President Biden says he’s “not confident at all” that there will be a peaceful transfer of power if Trump loses the November election:
Arizona Grand Jury Wanted To Indict Trump, Too
The Arizona grand jury that handed down indictments in the state’s fake electors probe was interested in indicting Donald Trump, too, but were discouraged from doing so by prosecutors with the state attorney general’s office, according to a new filing this week defending against attacks that the prosecution was politically motivated. Attorney General Kris Mayes has not publicly addressed the thinking behind that strategy since the filing.
Jan. 6 Defendant Taken Into Custody After Threatening Posts
Prosecutors moved to revoke bail for a Jan. 6 defendant who allegedly posted online threats against Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Attorney General Merrick Garland, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Georgia Judge Scott McAfee.
The 2020 Election Still Isn’t Over In Georgia
The Georgia Election Board voted 3-2 to reinvestigate Fulton County’s handling of the 2020 presidential recount. The three Republican members who voted to ask the state attorney general to reexamine the results yet again have been praised publicly by Donald Trump as recently as this past weekend.
For Legal Nerds …
An unusual sequence of events this week in the legal fight over Texas’ installation of buoys in the Rio Grande, a move the federal government is fighting but recently lost on at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The case is now back to the trial judge. Here’s where things get interesting.
After a status conference two days ago, the Texas attorney general’s office took the unusual step of racing to the appeals court to tattle, basically, on what the trial judge had said in the status conference. That prompted a swift order from the trial judge hauling the parties back into court yesterday for a second status conference in which he lambasted the attorney general’s office.
Politico senior legal affairs reporter Josh Gerstein has some choice excerpts from the transcript of the second status conference.
Astronauts May Be Stranded Until 2025
The two astronauts who departed Earth for a planned eight-day mission aboard Boeing’s Starliner two months ago may not return until 2025 as NASA works on a backup plan to have them hitch a ride on a Space X vehicle. The astronauts have been stuck on the International Space Station because of technical issues with the Boeing craft that have raised safety concerns about using it for the return trip.
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is this on?
That chest-puffing is pretty ironic, coming from Corporal Jimmy Olsen.
(Or, given his eye-liner, some might say Max Klinger.)
Yay. Let the flood gates open!!!
MM posted at 9:39 eastern. Comments open at 1:39 eastern. WTF