Trump Spent The Final Weekend Showing Exactly Who He Is

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

As Clear A Referendum As Ever Could Be

Donald Trump slogged through the final weekend of his third presidential campaign as the Republican Party nominee demonstrating in blatant ways nearly every facet of the misbegotten character that makes him unfit for public office at any level.

He mimed stroking and fellating a microphone on a rally stage in Milwaukee. He talked favorably of the press corps in attendance taking bullets intended for him at a rally in Pennsylvania. He said he should have never left the White House after his 2020 election defeat, contemplating a coup by intransigence. He bizarrely claimed that the counting of votes should be over by 9 p.m. on election night, thus stoking anew bogus election fraud conspiracies centered on the time it takes to count votes.

It wasn’t that long ago that the most persistent challenge Republicans in public life presented to reporters, watchdogs, and the sanctity of the English language was disguising their unpopular, often cruel, and elaborately expensive policy preferences under layers of double talk, misdirection, and word play. With Trump it is all undisguised. Perhaps we can count that as small blessing.

On the margins of this campaign, Trump and his surrogates have muddied the waters around health care policy, Medicare, tariffs, and taxation. Political reporters still fall for this gamesmanship. But where it counted most – trying to soften the edges of Republicans’ brutal abortion policies – the political press was largely on point and unfooled.

For the most part though, what you see with Trump is what you get. It is why his defeat will be so cathartic and represent a genuine repudiation of the man and his movement. It is also why a Trump victory would be so devastating. As unfathomable as a Trump win would be after the last decade of Trumpism and especially the past three weeks of his careening, unhinged campaign, it remains a real possibility.

History will show that we knew everything we needed to know. Ignorance will be no excuse.

Obama On Trump

Former President Barack Obama quickly wove into his stump speech some of Trump’s weekend insanity:

Obama on Trump: Who cannot understand how an NBA superstar can be both Greek and Black… Who spreads ridiculous fantasies that Haitians are eating people’s pets. Who just this past week arranged for one of his supporters to tell jokes about Black people eating watermelon and… pic.twitter.com/8hs8buZc5d

— Acyn (@Acyn) November 3, 2024

Final Swing State Numbers

The final polling of likely voters in the seven swing states by the NYT/Siena College:

• Nevada: Harris 49%, Trump 46%
• North Carolina: Harris 48%, Trump 46%
• Wisconsin: Harris 49%, Trump 47%
• Georgia: Harris 48%, Trump 47%
• Pennsylvania: Harris 48%, Trump 48%
• Michigan: Harris 47%, Trump 47%
• Arizona: Trump 49%, Harris 45%

By The Numbers

• ABC News poll: Harris leads Trump nationally among likely voters 49%-46%. “Harris was +2 in early October, +4 (a slight edge) last week and is +3 in this poll,” according to ABC News.
• WaPo poll: Harris leads Trump 48%-47% nationwide among both likely and registered voters.
• Shock poll in Iowa: Harris leads Trump 47%-44% among likely voters, according to the Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll by highly respected pollster J. Ann Selzer.

Election Threats Watch

• WSJ: The Proud Boys Have Regrouped and Are Signaling Election Plans
• NYT: On Telegram, a Violent Preview of What May Unfold on Election Day and After
• Politico: Republicans bring back fake electors in battlegrounds
• Bloomberg: ‘What Worries Me? Everything’: Officials Brace for US Election Day

Thread Of The Day

Former Trump DHS General Counsel John Mitnick posted a compelling thread to fellow Republicans about why he’s voting for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump:

He is not a conservative; rather, he is a would-be autocrat and fascist motivated exclusively by his personal self-interest. … You won’t escape the disastrous effects of his policies (e.g., tariffs) on the economy, global instability and damage to national security resulting from his admiration for foreign dictators, or the chaos, lawlessness, and persecution that he promises. No one will.

Disinformation Watch

• WaPo: Trump escalates false claims of fraud, setting stage to cry foul if he loses
• NBC News: Why Pennsylvania’s unusual voting laws make it ripe for rigged election claims
• The U.S. intelligence community issued a rapid assessment that a fake video portraying Haitians voting in Georgia was part of the Russian disinformation campaign.

Quote Of The Day

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA): “It doesn’t make you a man to pick on trans or gay kids. It just makes you an asshole.” 

Kamala On SNL-ala

On The Trail

Where the candidates will be today on the final day of the campaign:

Harris will spend the whole day in Pennsylvania, ending with a late-night rally in Philadelphia:

• Scranton
• Allentown
• Reading
• Pittsburgh
• Philadelphia

Trump will hit three states today:

• Raleigh, NC
• Reading, PA
• Pittsburgh, PA
• Final rally in Grand Rapids, MI

Elon Musk Watch

• WaPo: Election deniers were aimless. Now, with Musk’s help, they’re an army.
• NBC News: ‘All hell has broken loose’: Inside Elon Musk’s high-stakes pro-Trump door-knocking effort
• The Guardian: Elon Musk’s America Pac was warned about Trump ground game fraud months ago

What To Look Forward To In Trump II

• More nastiness:

• More purges: Conservative group’s ‘watch list’ targets federal employees for firing, the WaPo reports.

The Epstein Tapes

In the final days before the election, author Michael Wolff is dribbling out excerpts of his hours of taped interviews with now-deceased sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein that pertain to Donald Trump.

Good Read

Trump biographer Timothy O’Brien on “The Peculiarly American Roots of Trumpism“:

However shocked Americans may be by Trump’s ascent, his arrival and ongoing influence shouldn’t have caught them entirely by surprise. Trumpian characters have floated across the political and social landscape for much of the country’s history. Trump and his fellow travelers have become fixations because they’re more than mere carny acts, attuned to the public’s needs and paranoia. They’ve secured their place because they’re also a reflection of the people they court.

2024 Ephemera

• WSJ: Who Will Win the U.S. House? Watch These Tight Races
• WaPo: GOP’s closing election message on health baffles strategists, worries experts
• The Hill: “New security fencing went up around the White House, U.S. Capitol and Vice President Harris’s residence in Washington, D.C. as authorities prepare for Election Day in the event there may be political unrest in the coming days.”

Quincy Jones, 1933-2024

In memory of the coolest cat who ever was:

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