Dems’ Pivot to Texas and Florida

Posted on by Josh Marshall

After days of hints at it, Democrats are now making a serious foray into Florida and Texas in a last-ditch effort to hold on to their Senate majority. Before calling it “last-ditch,” I wondered what to call it. Is that too pessimistic? Too optimistic? I’m really not sure. You know the background. Democrats went into this cycle with an almost historically bad map. One seat in West Virginia was, by universal agreement, hopeless. Beyond that preordained loss, Democrats had incumbents up in a several of the swing states and new candidates trying to hold existing seats in other swing states. On the other side of the ledger there were no obvious pick-up opportunities. Starting from those inauspicious beginnings, the Democrats’ map has held up remarkably well. In all but one case, Senate Democratic candidates go into the last month of the campaign either favorites or strong contenders. That one exception is Montana, where Jon Tester is now a decided underdog. Which brings us to Florida and Texas.

Are these races really plausible?

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Trump’s Obsession With Violence Becomes More Explicit

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.

‘One Really Violent Day’

With five weeks until the election, and early voting underway, Donald Trump has returned to the themes that most animate him: ones grounded in race and racial violence.

In a campaign appearance Friday in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania, where the outcome of the 2024 election may very well be decided, Trump launched into a disjointed attack on crime, long a Republican code word for Black. But the dream sequence he narrated about unlawfully using violence preemptively as a deterrent to more crime was clear as a bell:

Crime and immigration as racist code words are not new in general or specifically to Trump. He has fallen back on them over and over, as other rhetorical devices come and go. As has been observed repeatedly over the past decade, Trump seems to have a visceral personal reaction to the prospect of violence, especially as a means of cleansing or rejuvenating, a baptismal violence fantasy that he indulges when the going gets tough.

The violence of Trump’s fantasies take many forms – police brutality, vigilantism, pro-wrestling theatrics – but in every form they serve as a projection of strength for a fundamentally weak, craven, and damaged man.

Trump Cranks Up Attacks On Immigrants

In related news, Trump’s racist anti-immigrant rhetoric has deepened and darkened as the race has tightened and Election Day approaches. While xenophobia has always been part and parcel of Trumpism, the combination of finding little traction elsewhere and Kamala Harris’ own biracial status has left blatant racist appeals as Trump’s last campaign grasp:

  • WSJ: Trump Amps Up Rhetoric to Keep Immigration at Center of Election
  • NYT: Trump’s Answer to Harris’s Border Trip Is To Call Her ‘Mentally Disabled’
  • CNN: To attack Harris, Trump falsely describes new stats on immigrants and homicide
  • WaPo: Trump lambastes immigrants using false homicide claims

Springfield Still Reeling From Attack On Haitian Immigrants

  • Politico: Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine confronts Trump’s lies.
  • NYT: An Ohio Businessman Faces Death Threats for Praising His Haitian Workers

Rule Of Law Watch

  • WSJ: Trump Plans Massive Shake-Up of Justice Department
  • Politico Magazine: Exactly How Trump Could Prosecute His Political Enemies

The Battle To Control The Senate

  • WSJ: Mitch McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund plans to spend $67.5 million on TV, radio and digital ads to flip Democratic Senate seats in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin
  • Politico: Ted Cruz rebrands for a tight race in Texas

2024 Ephemera

Feds Bring Charges In Iran Hack Of Trump Campaign

Three Iranian nationals were indicted in federal court in Washington, D.C., for their alleged roles in the hack-and-leak attack against the Trump campaign.

Still Fighting Impeachment I At Ukraine’s Expense

An astonishing moment, really:

Can’t Ignore

Outside of Morning Memo’s usual jurisdiction, but the weekend developments in Lebanon are too momentous not to mention:

Southern Appalachia Faces A Long Recovery From Helene

ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA – SEPTEMBER 28: Men inspect the damage from flooding in the Biltmore Village in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on September 28, 2024 in Asheville, North Carolina. Hurricane Helene made landfall Thursday night in Florida’s Big Bend with winds up to 140 mph. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

The death toll from Hurricane Helene rose past 100, more than a third of those deaths in and around Asheville in crippled western North Carolina, where historic rainfall caused catastrophic damage to human infrastructure.

Kris Kristofferson, 1936-2024

Kris Kristofferson being interviewed. He performed in the Olympia Theatre, Dublin, 08/02/1993. (Part of the Independent Newspapers Ireland/NLI Collection). (Photo by Independent News and Media/Getty Images)

Kris Kristofferson’s many remarkable incarnations – from youthful accomplishments like Rhodes Scholar and Army helicopter pilot to his creative output as a songwriter and musician to his substantial career as an actor – made him the embodiment of certain eras of American pop culture, especially the 1970s.

I have an offbeat amalgam of mental snapshots of him: flying helicopters offshore for the oil and gas industry from my hometown while he wrote “Me and Bobby McGee,” which Janis Joplin would make famous posthumously; the trucker in the Sam Peckinpah movie based on the novelty song “Convoy” that defined the big rig craze of the 1970s; a member of the supergroup The Highwaymen in the 1980s along with Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings; his fabled confrontation with Toby Keith backstage at Nelson’s 70th birthday party in 2009, that Ethan Hawke famously described and that Kristofferson himself said he had no memory of.

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War On Terror, Redux

Posted on by Nicole Lafond

Hello, It’s The Weekend. This Is The Weekender ☕

Trump’s basic continuity with the GOP that preceded him gets lost in all of his bluster and lack of self-control. Sure, cheating on his wife with a pornstar and trying to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, among other things, get attention. But in some sense, they’re the exception to the rule. On the majority of issues, the same tendencies that existed under the Bush Administration, remain.

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Trump Camp Says State Menstrual Surveillance Programs are A-OK

Posted on by Josh Marshall

One of the most toxic and politically explosive parts of the current abortion rights debate is tied the complexities and perhaps inanities of leaving national abortion policy up to individual states. And a comment yesterday from Trump spokesman Jason Miller put the question right back into the center of the campaign.

It’s not enough for many anti-abortion stalwarts to ban the procedure in their state. They want to ban legal drugs designed to induce abortion. They want to surveil and block women traveling to other states to obtain an abortion. One of the most threatening dimensions of these programs is that they threaten to make doctors and other medical professionals — who might give counsel on or simply know about a woman’s plans to obtain an abortion — responsible for reporting her actions. If you visit your OB-GYN and discuss traveling to another state to get an abortion, does your OB have to report you to the local sheriff? It applies to third parties who might assist a woman either in traveling to get an abortion or getting FDA-approved medications to induce an abortion at home. The cases we’ve already seen range the gamut from sheriff’s departments wanting to pull medical and travel records for evidence of pregnancies that ended for unexplained reasons, gaps in menstruation, trips out of state that coincided with a pregnancy not brought to term.

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The Eric Adams Case Is About More Than Public Corruption

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.

A Paradigm Shift From Public Corruption To … What Exactly?

By now you’ve seen the broad outlines of the indictment of NYC Mayor Eric Adams. Five counts – conspiracy, wire fraud, solicitation of a campaign contribution by a foreign national, and bribery – of being a sloppy, brazen idiot.

It’s our usual practice to exalt in the buffoonery, slapstick comedy, and hilarious self-incrimination of corrupt elected officials. We’ll do a little of that in a moment.

But I want to place this in a different bucket than the usual run-of-the-mill public corruption case. It belongs instead to a new breed of criminal prosecutions targeting the foreign corruption of U.S. elected officials, elections, and the political system as a whole. It’s a new class of cases that combines what we think of as traditional public corruption with a national security and foreign policy component.

While the Justice Department has been arguably slow in responding to the threats posed by Donald Trump that culminated in the Jan. 6 attack, federal law enforcement has been focused, swift, and arguably relentless in targeting malign efforts by foreign governments and interests in corrupting our domestic politics for their own ends.

Whether it’s Russian ongoing efforts to destabilize the U.S. political system, Egyptian efforts to compromise Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), or the multiple cases involving officials and business interests from our NATO ally Turkey, the pattern of quick DOJ intervention suggests this is among the highest federal law enforcement priorities. The Adams prosecution falls squarely in the recent spate of Turkey-related cases.

DOJ has used a mix of anti-public-corruption laws and the Foreign Agents Registration Act to combat these perverse outside influences. It seems especially focused on moving rapidly in the periods before elections when the potential damage of corrupt influence is greatest.

So while the allegations against Adams are especially ridiculous in the particulars, the trend of which he is a part is a relatively new and different phenomenon that’s only come into sharper focus in the past decade.

Always With The Buffoonery

No matter which bucket you’re talking about – public corruption, foreign influence, kleptocratic excesses – the pure absurdity, utter recklessness, and cartoonish criming seems to remain entirely intact and undiluted.

Spot-On Analysis (Stringer Bell Weeps)

Quite A Day For Purported Crime-Fighting NYC Mayors

Rudy Giuliani officially disbarred in Washington D.C. for his efforts to subvert the 2020 election on behalf of Donald Trump.

The Long Tail Of Trump Accountability

  • Jack Smith filed his extensive briefing and offer of evidence in the Trump Jan. 6 case in an effort to overcome the presidential immunity bestowed by the Supreme Court, but the filing remains under seal.
  • Massive civil fraud verdict against Trump gets frosty reception at New York appeals court.

Smartmatic Settles Defamation Case Against Newsmax

The settlement arising from Newsmax’s false claims about the 2020 election came as jury selection was beginning in Delaware. The terms of the confidential settlement were not disclosed.

Election Security Watch

  • TPM’s Khaya Himmelman: Safeguards Will Prevent Georgia Board From Blocking Certification Indefinitely. But Delays Could Still Wreak Havoc
  • Christian Science Monitor’s Cameron Joseph interviews Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger about the Georgia Election Board “destroying voter confidence.”

On The Trail

  • Donald Trump said he would meet Friday morning at Trump Tower with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, their first meeting since 2019.
  • Later Friday, Trump is in Warren, Michigan, for a town hall event focused on the auto industry.
  • Kamala Harris visits the U.S.-Mexico border In Arizona.

By The Numbers: Swing States Edition

ARIZONA

GEORGIA

MICHIGAN

Harris leads Trump 50%-47% among likely voters, according to the latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll.

NEVADA

Harris leads Trump 52%-45% among likely voters, according to the latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll.

NORTH CAROLINA

Harris leads Trump 50%-48% among likely voters, according to the latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll.

PENNSYLVANIA

Harris leads Trump 51%-46% among likely voters, according to the latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll.

WISCONSIN

Harris leads Trump 51%-48% among likely voters, according to the latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll.

Breaking News In Iranian Hack Of Trump Campaign

  • ABC News: “Federal law enforcement officials plan to announce criminal charges Friday in connection with the alleged Iranian hack of emails from members of former President Donald Trump’s campaign, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.”
  • Politico: “A grand jury has indicted multiple Iranians on charges related to hacking Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.”

2024 Ephemera

  • Democrats are hedging their bets on their Senate majority by making late – perhaps desperate – plays in the closer-than-expected races to unseat Ted Cruz (TX), Rick Scott (FL), and Deb Fischer (NE).
  • Never-Trump Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) remains reluctant to endorse Kamala Harris because (i) he wants “to preserve his ability to rebuild the Republican Party in a post-Trump world”; and (ii) has concerns about his own family’s safety, the WaPo reports.
  • David Dayen on Kamala Harris’ manufacturing agenda.

Playing The Long Game

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced a bill to expand the Supreme Court by six justices over 12 years, among other reform measures.

Every Last Bit Of This

Quote Of The Day

A Matt Gaetz word salad, offered in defiant response to inquiries by the House Ethics Committee into allegations of drug use and underage sex:

I have not used drugs which are illegal, absent some law allowing use in a jurisdiction of the United States. I have not used “illicit” drugs, which I consider to be drugs unlawful for medical or over-the-counter use everywhere in the United States.

‘Many Things Keep Happening’

To end a week where we needed some grounding, pause for a moment and listen to the Kentucky patois of Robert Penn Warren: “The mayor / Has been, clearly, remiss, and the city / Was totally unprepared for such a crisis.”

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Gaetz Says He’ll No Longer Voluntarily Cooperate With ‘Uncomfortably Nosey’ Ethics Panel

Posted on by Nicole Lafond

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is DONE answering the House Ethics Committee’s questions about his alleged sex life and his alleged drug use, at least voluntarily.

Continue reading “Gaetz Says He’ll No Longer Voluntarily Cooperate With ‘Uncomfortably Nosey’ Ethics Panel” → 

On Language and Predation

Posted on by Josh Marshall

From TPM Reader LS …

I had a different response to Trump’s words. At first it was visceral disgust mixed with fear. Then the memories kicked in. This is the kind of talk the man who raped me said.  It was some version of that I was going to like the experience, which was deeply untrue. And that I wouldn’t tell anyone if I knew what was best for me. 

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Managing Your Polling Habit, or Getting the Monkey Off Your Back

Posted on by Josh Marshall

Our friend Rick Perlstein had a good piece in The American Prospect yesterday about polling and its pitfalls — both its pitfalls as a practice, with its evolving, imperfect methodologies, but also as something we political junkies obsess over. The gist of his argument is contained in the subhed: “Presidential polls are no more reliable than they were a century ago. So why do they consume our political lives?” I don’t think Rick quite sustains that claim fully. I’m not sure he’s actually trying to. But as is the case with many articles, its interesting enough for the points and the bits of history he shares along the way. The gist is that new methodologies keep working great until they suddenly don’t, and then it’s on to some new methodology. Then there’s the fact that for decades pollsters always seemed to stop polling too soon and miss big shifts at the ends of campaigns.

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