I have to remind people sometimes I’m almost never sending a message with the reader emails I post or signaling agreement. The the ones I post are not necessarily representative either. That applies to AB’s email from yesterday. I do think Pennsylvania is going to be an epic battle. But I’m more optimistic. Here’s another note from TPM Reader TH …
Continue reading “More On PA”Downcast About PA
From TPM Reader AB …
Continue reading “Downcast About PA”About Pennsylvania.
Like you, I think Pennsylvania will be key to the election, and I am not sure how it will go. I live in Western PA coal country, and a number of people have noted fewer Trump signs. That is true, but I think a lot of the non-sign people will still vote for Trump. A grudging vote counts just as much as an enthusiastic one. I also don’t think there is anything Harris can do to win them over. What they really like about Trump is his sense of grievance, and his whining. They don’t want policies to bring back the golden days when coal miners all had a gold plated Rolls Royce.
They’re All My Graves, Son
We’ve all been living with Trump for eight years now. He’s done so much, and so much has been written about him, that it’s hard to be surprised. For a writer, it’s hard to find anything new to say: we all know who he is, his appeal and how he operates are, by now, extremely familiar.
Continue reading “They’re All My Graves, Son”The State of the Race
Just before Labor Day, often treated as the quasi-official kick-off of the presidential election season proper, I wanted to share some notes on the state of the race — what the polls say, what they mean and whatever other scraps of information I’ve been able to pick up and glean.
Overall, I see a race that remains close, uncertain, but in which Kamala Harris holds a small but general advantage.
Let’s start with the shift from mid-summer and Harris’ entry into the campaign. When Biden left the race he was three or four points behind Trump in the national polls and was behind in all the swing states. This represented a small but critical drop from where he was in June before the debate. (Much of that drop was in the week prior to leaving the race.) Over the course of August, Harris moved from that starting point into a three- or four-point lead in national polls. So a shift of seven or eight points in Democrats’ direction, where she more or less remains. At the state level, Harris is now ahead or roughly tied in all the swing states. North Carolina, meanwhile, is now firmly in the swing state group, where it really hadn’t been under Biden.
Continue reading “The State of the Race”‘Smoke And Mirrors’: Warren Slams Trump’s Nonsensical IVF Campaign Promise
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called former President Donald Trump’s latest, vague campaign promise — that in vitro fertilization services will be paid for by the government or insurance companies under a second Trump presidency — “smoke and mirrors” on Friday, slamming him for the meaningless promise that she says distracts from the real threat: the possible criminalization of IVF treatments.
Continue reading “‘Smoke And Mirrors’: Warren Slams Trump’s Nonsensical IVF Campaign Promise”6 Unanswered Questions About Trump’s Arlington Cemetery Fiasco
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
What We Still Don’t Know
- What does the Trump campaign video show? The Trump campaign initially said it was “prepared to release footage” it had of the incident that would show what happened, but a day later it said it was “weighing its options” and to date it hasn’t released the relevant footage.
- Who are the two Trump campaign staffers who had a verbal and physical altercation with the cemetery official? The identity of the campaign staffers who verbally abused and aggressively brushed by the cemetery official have still not been made public, and their exact roles with the campaign remain unclear.
- What does the report filed by the cemetery official say? The Army has closed the case because the cemetery official didn’t want to press charges for fear of retaliation from MAGA world, but not before the cemetery official involved filed a report with the police department at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall.
- Who else witnessed the incident and what did they see? As the photo above suggests, there were numerous other people in attendance before and after the incident, including Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R), families of the fallen, campaign staffers, and Secret Service. We have limited accounts from them of what transpired.
- What did the Secret Service do, if anything, about the incident? Trump was under Secret Service protection at the time of the incident but it’s unclear what, if anything, agents witnessed, whether they intervened, or how the agency handles a difficult situation like this.
- What was the content of the official warnings to the Trump campaign ahead of time not to turn the cemetery ceremony into a campaign event? The Army says it was clear in advance with participants about the prohibitions against political activities on cemetery grounds, but we haven’t seen those warnings, what exactly they said, or what form they took.
Latest Developments In Arlington National Cemetery Incident
Over the past 24 hours:
- The Army released an unusual statement defending the cemetery official involved in the physical altercation with the Trump campaign staffer while trying to enforce the rules and regulations for the national shrine.
- Senate Democrats began to rouse themselves to look into the matter. The Senate Armed Service Committee is the committee of jurisdiction.
- House Democrats also expressed an interest in investigating the matter, with some members calling for the release of the report filed by the cemetery worker. Both chambers are on August recess.
Trump Prosecution Watch
- In an interview with CBS News, a remarkably candid Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson spoke about the Supreme Court’s egregious presidential immunity decision: “I was concerned about a system that appeared to provide immunity for one individual under one set of circumstances, when we have a criminal justice system that had ordinarily treated everyone the same.”
- Donald Trump has launched another long-shot effort to move the New York hush money case to federal court in order to avoid sentencing following his conviction in the case.
Suboptimal
NYT: “As Speaker Nancy Pelosi was evacuated from the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, while the complex was under attack, her motorcade passed by a pipe bomb at the Democratic National Committee headquarters that law enforcement had yet to render safe, according to video and analysis released this week by House Republicans.”
The Election Story Nobody Wants to Talk About
Rick Perlstein interviews David Neiwert about the threat of political violence by right-wing extremists as we head into the 2024 election (plus a generous shoutout to TPM).
Abortion Watch
- Having it both ways: Trump suggested Thursday that he would vote for the Florida ballot initiative that would ease the state’s six-week abortion ban, but his campaign quickly put out a statement declaring that Trump had not yet taken a position on the ballot measure.
- Be skeptical: Trump said Thursday, without offering much in the way of detail, that he if elected he would require private insurers and the government to cover the costs of IVF.
Quote Of The Day
I did not have Medicare for All for IVF on my bingo card for policy proposals from Donald Trump.
Larry Levitt, a healthcare expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation
2024 Ephemera
- WSJ poll: Harris leads Trump 48%-47%, a flip from the last WSJ survey in July, when Trump led by 2 percentage points. It’s the first time that Biden or Harris has led Trump in the WSJ poll since April 2023.
- In the new Democratic ticket’s first joint interview, Harris said she would appoint a Republican to her cabinet.
- NYT: Donors Quietly Push Harris to Drop Tax on Ultrawealthy
Thune Busted For Playing Both Sides Of The Fence
Politico’s Playbook catches Sen. John Thune (R-SD) taking center stage at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a home-state water project that received $152 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which Thune voted against.
For Your Radar …
A federal judge in Texas who is a favorite of conservative legal movers and shakers, including Republican attorneys general who frequently shop for venue in his court, has denied Media Matters’ motion to dismiss Elon Musk’s lawsuit against it in a thin opinion that clears the way for the case to go trial in April.
UVa Suspends ‘Woke’ Tours After Conservative Alum Complain
NYT: “The University of Virginia said on Thursday that it had suspended a longstanding campus tour service, but said the move was unrelated to complaints that the tours cast a negative historical spotlight on the school, particularly its relationship to slavery.”
Have A Great Holiday Weekend!
Some Louisiana roots music to get you in the spirit:
Morning Memo will be back Tuesday.
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The Times Strikes Again
Wes Moore, Governor of Maryland, is one of the Democrats’ big, rising stars. And yesterday the Times delivered an ominous headline about a Bronze Star “he claimed but never received.” The subhed of the article reads: “For years, the Maryland governor has faced questions about whether he had wrongfully said he had a Bronze Star. He insisted no. But an old document proves otherwise.”
Sounds bad, as they say. The feature photo shows Moore looking toward the sky with a mix of contrition and shame. So the article tells us that Moore has long “faced questions” and now the Times has finally found the document that proves Moore’s wrongdoing. That document turns out to be his application for a White House fellowship in 2006 where he said he had received the Bronze Star and combat action badge. But there’s no record of him ever receiving the Bronze Star. Moore spoke to the Times and said it was an honest mistake which he regretted. According to Moore his superior officer told him to include it because he was already submitting the paperwork for the award. “He thought that I earned it and he was already going through the paperwork to process it.”
You have to get all the way down to paragraph fourteen, as TPM reader AG helpfully pointed out to me, until you get this.
Continue reading “The Times Strikes Again”Trump’s Violent Misogyny Doesn’t Break Through
Truth Social, Donald Trump’s (failing) social media site, is the playground for his id.
He regularly amplifies QAnon conspiracy theories, vents with his signature random capitalization about witch hunts and rigged elections and boosts thinly veiled calls to recreate the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Continue reading “Trump’s Violent Misogyny Doesn’t Break Through”Listen To This: Ready For North Carolina To Break Our Hearts Again
A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh talk about North Carolina’s rating change, Trump’s campaign brawling with an Arlington Cemetery employee and the upcoming Harris-Walz interview.
You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.
Georgia County Installs ‘Panic Buttons’ For Poll Workers As Concerns Grow Over New Rules
Against the backdrop of the Georgia State Election Board implementing new rules that have the potential to sow seeds of doubt in the state’s election system, a Georgia county — that’s already been plagued by dangerous election misinformation and threats since 2020 — recently approved the implementation of “panic buttons” to protect poll workers.
Continue reading “Georgia County Installs ‘Panic Buttons’ For Poll Workers As Concerns Grow Over New Rules”