The 2024 Campaign Veered Off The Rails In One Bizarre Day

Posted on by David Kurtz

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

What The Hell Was That?

Some days, y’all. Yesterday was one of them.

Rather than headlining any single one of the day’s weird, troubling, or strange outbursts, Morning Memo will just work through them in rough order of relative importance.

Straight-up Antisemitism

In two separate speeches in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Donald Trump laid a trap for Jewish Americans, blaming them for not supporting him in sufficient numbers given his support for the right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

Ground Zero For Trump’s Hate: Springfield, Ohio

Here are the latest developments:

  • The small Ohio city under siege from attacks on its Haitian immigrant community by the Trump-Vance ticket is bracing for a possible Trump visit.
  • Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who is from the Springfield area, penned a NYT op-ed defending the city, its Haitian immigrants, and the economic revival that they helped to fuel.
  • The local health department refuted JD Vance’s race-baiting claims that the influx of Haitian immigrants has caused disease in the city to skyrocket, according to reporting by Greg Sargent.

Harris Puts Abortion Rights Front And Center

  • A campaign event in Michigan hosted by Oprah Winfrey and styled like her talk show featured Kamala Harris and the mother of Amber Thurman, the 28-year-old Georgia woman who died after waiting for treatment for complications from an abortion pill.
  • The TV-talk-show-style event included appearances by an array of celebrities, including Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lopez, Julia Roberts, and Tracee Ellis Ross.
  • Harris is back in Georgia today for an event where she will again focus on abortion rights.

2024 Ephemera

  • The Harris campaign outspent the Trump campaign 20-1 in digital advertising on Meta’s platforms in the week surrounding their debate.
  • The Trump campaign is making a late push to get Nebraska to change its Electoral College vote allocation to winner-take-all, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is leading the charge.
  • Kamala Harris surprises Oprah with her gun ownership:

I See What You Did There

Kamala Harris with a dig at Donald Trump’s “concepts of a plan” for replacing Obamacare:

The GOP Is Stuck With Mark Robinson

The deadline for removing Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R-NC), the GOP nominee for governor, from the ballot passed at 12:01 a.m. ET today without any action. And so it appears that Republicans will ride this broken horse all the way to the finish line in November despite another bombshell revelation about Robinson’s conduct before entering public life.

The CNN story that had been rumored all day finally landed with enough force to sink any other candidate. But since March 2023, when TPM’s Hunter Walker first surfaced Robinson’s Facebook posts railing against gays, Blacks, and Jews, Robinson has managed to endure a series of stunning revelations without abandoning his Trump-endorsed candidacy.

By every account, the CNN story can’t quite capture how sordid the Robinson posts it uncovered actually are. Calling himself a “Black Nazi” is just a sampling. The well from which CNN drew makes NSFW look like a Disney movie.

It was almost comical when additional reporting chimed in that Robinson’s email was in the leak-and-dump Ashley Madison episode from a few years ago.

The calculus for Republicans has changed dramatically in North Carolina, where Biden’s exit from the race and Harris’ entry have put the state in play in a way that could seriously upend Trump’s path to Electoral College victory.

Curb Your Enthusiasm For The Salacious, Dear Reader

Olivia Nuzzi, the Washington correspondent for New York Magazine, is on leave after it was publicly revealed that she had a personal relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during his presidential campaign.

After news of the relationship broke, Nuzzi issued a statement in which she did not name RFK Jr. but conceded that “earlier this year, the nature of some communication” between herself “and a former reporting subject turned personal.” She said “[t]he relationship was never physical” but she regretted not disclosing it. A spokesperson for RFK Jr. said: “Mr. Kennedy only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece.”

TPM regulars will recall that Nuzzi, then 20, first appeared on TPM more than a decade ago, when Hunter Walker was covering Anthony Weiner’s NYC mayoral campaign, which lashed out ferociously at Nuzzi, a former intern, for going public about the inner workings of the campaign.

New Court Filing Puts Gaetz And 17-Year-Old Girl At Sex Party

NOTUS: “Rep. Matt Gaetz attended a drug-fueled sex party in 2017 with the 17-year-old girl at the center of the alleged sex trafficking scandal, according to legal documents filed to a Florida federal court shortly before midnight Thursday, which cite sealed affidavits from three eyewitness testimonies.”

Alaska Man Charged With Threatening 6 SCOTUS Justices

A 76-year-old Alaska man was indicted and arrested on charges that he allegedly sent more than 465 messages through the Supreme Court’s public website threatening to torture and assassinate six justices. The justices have not been publicly identified.

For Your Radar …

AP: “The U.S. military has moved about 130 soldiers along with mobile rocket launchers to a desolate island in the Aleutian chain of western Alaska amid a recent increase in Russian military planes and vessels approaching American territory.”

Stat Of The Day

Francis S. Collins, the former director of the National Institutes of Health:

The statistic that gives me the deepest heartache is this: More than 230,000 Americans died unnecessarily between June 2021 and March 2022, largely because misinformation caused them to turn away from what might have saved them in the midst of a dangerous pandemic, according to an assessment from the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. This death rate is the equivalent of four fully loaded 737s crashing every day.

Live Your Weekend The Way Shohei Ohtani Plays Baseball

On Thursday afternoon, Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers had what is arguably the greatest regular season game in the history of major league baseball.

With the sporting world already watching because Ohtani was poised to pass a never-before reached milestone – 50 home runs and 50 steals in the same season – he proceeded to have a game for the ages, going 6-for-6 at the plate, hitting 3 home runs, stealing two bases, and generally having an otherworldly performance against the lowly Miami Marlins:

Enjoy a [lovely] weekend!

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Trump And His Friends Seize On Arizona Voter Registration Error As Conspiracy Theory Fodder

Posted on by Khaya Himmelman

Earlier this month, Maricopa County election officials detected an error in Arizona’s voter registration system, which has jeopardized tens of thousands of registered voters’ ability to vote full ballot in the upcoming election. 

Continue reading “Trump And His Friends Seize On Arizona Voter Registration Error As Conspiracy Theory Fodder” →

Lindsey Graham Helps Nebraska GOP Resurrect Effort To Screw Dems Out Of An Electoral College Vote

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is leading a delegation for Donald Trump to Nebraska, where the senator is making a last-ditch effort to convince a critical mass of the state’s Republican lawmakers to change how Nebraska awards Electoral College votes, a shift that could turn the state into a winner-takes-all situation.

Continue reading “Lindsey Graham Helps Nebraska GOP Resurrect Effort To Screw Dems Out Of An Electoral College Vote” →

Ummm … What’s Going on In North Carolina?

Posted on by Josh Marshall

Let me give you a brief update on a story out of North Carolina, or rather rumors out of North Carolina. Because it’s really nothing more than rumors. But it could be real and could be a pretty big deal. We’re told that CNN is about to publish a story that is likely to, or could, knock Lt Gov. Mark Robinson out of the governor’s race in North Carolina. That’s pretty stunning because Robinson is a freakshow candidate even in the broader menagerie of GOP freakshow candidates. Hunter Walker had an early jump on his freak flag in this story from a year and a half ago. That raises the question of what could possibly be so bad, so insane, outrageous or criminal that it would knock him out of the race. The rumors suggest something of a sexual nature. There already was a story a couple week ago claiming, over Robinson’s denials, that Robinson was a regular at porn-shop viewing booths in the ’90s and early 2000s. So what could it possibly be? And don’t forget that a major shakeup at the top of the ticket in North Carolina could conceivably impact the winner of the presidential election.

Continue reading “Ummm … What’s Going on In North Carolina?” →

Actual Springfield Ohio Story Is Pretty Different from What You’ve Heard

Posted on by Josh Marshall

I continue to have what I guess I would call a mild confidence that not just the Trump campaign but some amount of the political press is missing the political valence of the situation in Springfield, Ohio — the point I alluded to in this post from yesterday. But I want to zoom in on one aspect of the story. Trump and Vance are obviously telling a really lurid and ugly story about half-savage outsiders being foisted on a town of hard-working Americans from the Heartland. But even a lot of the non-far-right coverage has operated on the assumption that either the federal government or some outside entity has essentially resettled a large community of refugees in this one city. But that’s not really what happened here at all. The influx of immigrants into the city is actually a direct result of economic redevelopment plans devised by local leaders, most of whom are Republicans.

Continue reading “Actual Springfield Ohio Story Is Pretty Different from What You’ve Heard” →

Yet More Polls

Posted on by Josh Marshall

For reasons that are not altogether clear, a ton of polls came out overnight. Just in Pennsylvania alone, for example, I believe we have six new, decent-quality polls from just last night. We also have a few new national polls — Fox and NYT/Siena. I don’t know what appetite anyone has left for me doing deep-dive polling analysis of so many polls when, if you’re really that interested, you can see what the actual polling analysts say. (I have limited appetite to hear myself at this point.) I’d say the 30,000-foot takeaway is that they’re telling a pretty good story for Harris. We continue to see more evidence that Harris is consolidating real leads across the Blue Wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan and, yes … Pennsylvania. Of those six PA polls, three showed a tie. The other three showed leads of three, four and five points, respectively. Across these results you also see more signs of Harris consolidating or in some cases expanding on the 2020 Biden coalition, especially with “traditional” Dem constituencies. One detail I find interesting are the increasing signs that Republicans’ Electoral College advantage may be diminishing. As I said, if you don’t want to get into the nitty gritty, which may tell you less rather than more, the gist is that Harris seems to be consolidating a small but significant lead based on the Blue Wall states while remaining close or tied in the Southern tier states, where she may be better positioned in North Carolina than Georgia and possibly Arizona.

Trump-Vance Intentionally Blurs The Line Between Illegal And Legal Immigrants

Posted on by David Kurtz

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

No One Is Safe

The Trump-Vance ticket’s unbridled racist attacks on Haitian immigrants in Ohio – as a proxy for attacking immigrants and people of color everywhere – continue unabated deep into the second week of serving as a centerpiece of a campaign that was searching for a way to gain traction against Kamala Harris.

In a troubling sign of how the xenophobia at play here may be yoked to the powers of the federal government in a Trump II presidency, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH, ironically) insisted on continuing to call the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio “illegal aliens” even though they are legal immigrants.

When confronted by a questioner about the Haitians being in the country legally, Vance played to the crowd and, with stubborn grandiosity, stuck to his false claim denying them their legal status:

As NPR noted, Vance’s remarks had the additional effect of calling into question whether a not insignificant portion of the immigrant community would lose their legal statuses if Trump wins. Combined with the specter of Trump’s threat of mass deportations if he wins, the rhetoric that the Republican campaign is staking the race on continues to blur the line between legal and illegal immigration in a way that puts immigrants of all statuses at risk.

In other developments:

  • TPM’s Nicole Lafond: Ohio Republican Leaders Gently Beg Trump To Please Not Visit Springfield
  • Republican Gov. Mike DeWine and his wife have traveled to Haiti at least 25 times and helped found a school there named after their late daughter.
  • Adam Serwer: The Real Reason Trump and Vance Are Spreading Lies About Haitians
  • WSJ: How the Trump Campaign Ran With Rumors About Pet-Eating Migrants—After Being Told They Weren’t True

By The Numbers: Pennsylvania

2024 Ephemera

  • The national Teamsters union is declining to issue an endorsement in the presidential race for the first time in almost three decades.
  • More than 100 former GOP national security officials and members of Congress endorsed Kamala Harris, calling Donald Trump “unfit to serve again as president.”
  • The Guardian: “Emails obtained by the Guardian reveal a behind-the-scenes network of county election officials throughout Georgia coordinating on policy and messaging to both call the results of November’s election into question before a single vote is cast, and push rules and procedures favored by the election denial movement.”

‘Unwelcome and Unacceptable Malicious Activity’

AP: Iranian hackers tried but failed to interest Biden’s campaign in stolen Trump info, FBI says

TPM Exclusive

A trio of Democratic senators on the relevant committees – Judiciary and Intel – have told TPM they favor a Senate investigation into murky claims surfaced last month by the WaPo that Egypt allegedly funneled $10 million to Donald Trump to boost his 2016 campaign – an allegation that was being probed by federal investigators until they were reportedly stymied by the Trump DOJ.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press have moved to unseal court documents related to the story.

Oh …

ProPublica: “Federal Judge Aileen M. Cannon, the controversial jurist who tossed out the classified documents criminal case against Donald Trump in July, failed to disclose her attendance at a May 2023 banquet funded by a conservative law school.”

House GOP Is Doing House GOP Things

Punchbowl, with the punchy lede:

At the outset of September, House Republican leaders told us they were going to spend the weeks before the election dividing Democrats and uniting the GOP.

But in forcing a vote on a six-month CR with the SAVE Act — a move that failed badly on the House floor Wednesday night — Speaker Mike Johnson succeeded in spending a week dividing his party and lessening his already minuscule leverage with the Senate.

Sign Of The Times

A bipartisan group of four members of Congress are proposing a constitutional amendment to ensure continuity of government in the event of a mass casualty attack on the national legislature.

For The Record

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) issued an executive order banning “conversion therapy” for minors.

Riveting

The NYT has the best rundown of Israel’s staggering one-two punch against Hezbollah using exploding pagers Tuesday then exploding walkie-talkies Wednesday.

Ghosts Of Joe McCarthy

This may be the most outrageous conduct I’ve ever seen from a member of Congress in a committee hearing.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) has patented his country bumpkin schtick – and believe me when I tell you it’s pure schtick – but it wore thin a long time ago. His atrocious behavior Wednesday in relentlessly and falsely besmirching the leader of an Arab American group was neither home-spun nor folksy.

It was racist, inflammatory, intellectually dishonest, and put Maya Berry and Arab Americans everywhere at personal risk of physical harm by labeling them as terrorist sympathizers on the basis of their religion and ethnicity:

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Immigrants Are Unsung Heroes Of Global Trade And Value Creation, Research Finds

Posted on by John Light

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.

In nearly every country that hosts foreign-born citizens, immigration emerges as a lightning rod for controversy. The economic realities of immigration, however, are far more complex than the negative sound bites suggest.

Far from being a burden, as critics claim, immigrants play pivotal roles in driving innovation, enhancing productivity and fostering economic growth in their adopted countries. They also elevate their adopted and origin countries’ standings in global value chains, contributing to economic resilience.

We are economists who study global trade and migration, and our recent work reveals that immigrants contribute far more to the economic fabric of nations than previously understood.

By facilitating what’s known as “trade in value added,” or TiVA, immigrants play a crucial role in helping countries specialize their production, move up the value chain and significantly enhance trade sophistication.

Moving up the value chain means progressing from producing basic, low-value goods to more complex, higher-value products. This shift involves improving skills, technology and production techniques, allowing a country to capture more economic value and develop advanced industries.

So, what exactly is trade in value added, and why is it important?

In today’s global economy, products are rarely made entirely in one country. Instead, different stages of production occur across multiple nations. TiVA measures each country’s contribution to a final product, providing clearer insight into global value chains. For instance, while an iPhone may be assembled in China, its components come from various countries, each adding value.

Measuring the effect on global value chains

Our study found that a 10% increase in immigrants from a particular country residing in one of the 38 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member states leads to a 2.08% increase in the value added from their home country that becomes embedded in their host country’s exports to the world.

This effect was strongest in the services sector, followed closely by agriculture and manufacturing.

To understand how this works, consider Indian software engineers in Silicon Valley. Their understanding of the U.S. tech industry and India’s IT sector can lead to partnerships. These partnerships lead to Indian firms providing specialized coding services for American tech giants. The result? Higher-value U.S. tech exports that incorporate Indian expertise. This perfectly illustrates how immigrants boost trade in value added.

Or take Chinese immigrants in Italy’s fashion industry. Their cultural knowledge might help Italian luxury brands tailor products for the Chinese market and connect Italian designers with highly skilled textile workers in China. The result? Italian fashion exports incorporate Chinese craftsmanship, elevating both countries’ global fashion value chain positions.

Our findings show that immigrants are pivotal bridges in global trade networks. They leverage their unique knowledge, skills and connections to strengthen economic bonds between nations. That’s in line with previous research showing the significant role immigrants play in fostering bilateral trade.

Why immigration matters in the global economy

In an era of increasing skepticism toward globalization and migration, understanding the positive economic impacts of immigration is crucial. Our current and previous research, and the findings from related studies, indicate that rather than “stealing jobs,” immigrants often create value and new economic opportunities that might not otherwise exist.

Immigrants bring diverse skills, knowledge and networks to their host countries that can enhance innovation, fill labor shortages and open new market opportunities. They often possess unique insights into their home country markets, helping host country firms navigate cultural nuances and business practices that might otherwise pose trade barriers.

For home countries, emigrants can serve as cultural ambassadors, creating awareness, showcasing products and services, and helping to integrate their homeland into global value chains. They may also contribute to knowledge transfer, investment flows and business connections that boost their home and host countries’ economic development.

Moreover, immigrants’ ability to enhance trade in value added suggests they play a role in moving countries up the economic value chain. Rather than simply facilitating trade in raw materials or essential manufactured goods, immigrants appear to boost trade in more sophisticated, higher-value products and services. This is crucial for economic development, as countries that position themselves higher in global value chains tend to see bigger benefits.

Rethinking immigration and trade policies

Our observations have important implications for both immigration and trade. For one, they suggest that restrictive immigration policies might have unintended consequences, hindering a country’s trade performance and position in global value chains. Countries that want to become more economically competitive might consider more open immigration policies.

What’s more, our research indicates that immigrants’ economic benefits extend beyond the often-cited labor-market and fiscal impacts — in other words, having more workers who pay more taxes.

The evidence suggests policymakers should take a more holistic view of immigration’s economic effects, considering its role in facilitating sophisticated international trade and value creation.

Our results also align with previous research highlighting the potential value of workforce diversity for businesses, particularly for firms engaged in international trade. Employees from diverse national backgrounds can bring valuable insights and connections that help their companies navigate global markets and value chains.

It’s worth noting that immigrants’ impact on trade in value added varies across countries and sectors. This suggests that rather than one-size-fits-all approaches, targeted policies might most effectively leverage immigration for economic benefit.

Maximizing immigration’s positive impacts on trade and value chains also requires supportive policies and institutions that allow immigrants to use their skills and networks fully. These might include programs to assist with economic integration, language training, credential recognition and support for immigrant entrepreneurship.

A new perspective on immigration

As the global economy continues to evolve, with value chains becoming ever more complex and interconnected, the role of immigrants as facilitators of trade and value creation is likely to grow even more significant. Countries that recognize and leverage this potential stand to gain a competitive edge in the global marketplace.

Our research paints a picture of immigrants not as economic burdens but as valuable assets who enhance their host and home countries’ positions in the global economy. By making sophisticated trade linkages possible, and by boosting participation in global value chains, immigrants contribute to economic growth and development in ways that go far beyond conventional understanding.

As debates around immigration continue, it’s crucial to move beyond simplistic narratives and recognize the complex and often subtle ways that immigrants contribute to prosperity. In an interconnected world, immigrants aren’t just crossing borders — they are helping to weave the fabric of global trade and value creation.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Conversation