I’m a broken record on this. But I’m struck by the relative stasis of the Harris-Trump presidential campaign. It hasn’t always felt like that of course. It’s hard on the nerves. And it’s not like nothing has happened. We’ve had a sitting president drop out of the race, a mind-boggling two assassination attempts, a smackdown of a debate, two conventions. And yet stability in the polling numbers has been the calling card of this race. Joe Biden was behind. He fell further behind starting about two weeks after the June debate. After he dropped out Harris immediately moved the race into a tie. Then over a couple weeks she opened up a lead of roughly three points. It’s basically stayed right there for the last two months. The minor undulations have been so small as to likely represent little more than churn and statistical noise.
Continue reading “Locked”The Jan. 6 Case Against Donald Trump Is Part Of America’s Founding Story
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
The Story Of What Happened On Jan. 6 Is Ours To Own
In what is likely the last big Jan. 6 development before the election, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the unsealing Wednesday of the 165-page filing by Special Counsel Jack Smith that presents his best case for why presidential immunity doesn’t shield Donald Trump from criminal prosecution for subverting the 2020 election.
The case laid out by Smith broadly follows the already-familiar contours of the conspiracy to overturn the results of an election Trump lost. It’s a narrative we know because we saw most of it with our own eyes. What we couldn’t see directly was pieced together by the House Jan. 6 committee and journalists working tirelessly to document the conspiracy’s many disparate elements and to identify the vast cast of characters that ended the United States’ streak of peaceful transitions of power.
There remains great civic value in repeating that story for ourselves and for future generations so that it becomes woven into our collective memory like the Boston Tea Party or the firing on Fort Sumter or the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
The Jan. 6 debacle is a part of the nation’s founding story, even though it comes nearly 250 years later, because the same principles that animated its creation were under sustained attack, the same threats that the constitutional system was specifically designed to protect against were on full display, and the reactionary forces of chaos and destruction that always linger just over the horizon advanced to within minutes and feet of prevailing over democracy and the rule of law.
Smith and investigators have amassed an overwhelming body of evidence of Trump’s culpability. The challenge for prosecutors in light of the Supreme Court’s ahistorical decision on presidential immunity is to demonstrate that Trump fomented, led and engaged in the conspiracy in his capacity as a private citizen running for the presidency, not in his capacity as sitting president. Alternatively, Smith also argues that in some instances where Trump’s conduct was as president, the rebuttable presumption of immunity can be overcome. But the delicate dance of overcoming the Supreme Court’s heavy thumb on the scale of justice, isn’t the core value of Smith’s work. The real value of the fact-based narrative presented by Smith is the story it gives all of us to remember and repeat.
As I read through Smith’s filing, I shared Rick Hasen’s “red-hot anger and wistfulness” that the Supreme Court has hamstrung the timely prosecution of Trump and that this case may never go to trial if Trump wins in November. Coupled with U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of the slam-dunk indictment of Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, we have edged to the precipice of irretrievably undermining the rule of law by creating a presidency beyond the law, at least when the White House is held by Republicans and given unlimited rein by this corrupt Supreme Court.
In the face of such extreme threats to democracy, it can seem quaint, trivial, or even pointless to continue to document the transgressions being committed against the will of the American people, which is fundamentally what Jan. 6 was all about. But the careful, meticulous, and relentless collecting of evidence, recording of facts, and repeating of the stories we tell ourselves about what happened and who was responsible powerfully cement in our national consciousness the story of who we are, where we came from, and what we must overcome to get where we want to be as a democratic, pluralistic country.
A Point Of Pride
I want to acknowledge briefly the work of the TPM team for its early, consistent, and ongoing coverage of the 2020 election subversion conspiracy because it in so many ways presaged the case Special Counsel Jack Smith laid out in full yesterday.
We have done too many stories to note them all here, and I will inevitably overlook some of the work of our team, so apologies to them for that, but here is a sampling of a handful of some of our most significant stories:
January 25, 2021: The Capitol Mob Was Only The Finale Of Trump’s Conspiracy To Overturn The Election
July 5, 2022: How The Fake Electors Scheme Could Give The DOJ A Way Into Trumpworld
August 4, 2022: Why The Fake Electors Are About A Lot More Than Fake Electors
December 12, 2022: The Meadows Texts: A Plot To Overturn An American Election
February 10, 2023: How The Fake Electors Scheme Explains Everything About Trump’s Attempt To Steal The 2020 Election
February 12, 2024: The Chesebro Docs: How a Coterie of Attorneys Designed the Plan For Trump To Stay In Power
Infographic Of The Day
NYT: How Donald Trump could use the Justice Department to target his perceived political adversaries
Important
TPM’s Nicole Lafond: DHS Warns Every Level Of Election Admin Could Be Targeted By Domestic Extremists Next Month
Exclusive
WSJ: Elon Musk Gave Tens of Millions to Republican Causes Far Earlier Than Previously Known
2024 Ephemera
- Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) will make a campaign appearance with Kamala Harris on Thursday in Ripon, Wisconsin, the birthplace of the Republican Party.
- Donald Trump, 78, has still not released his medical records.
- The cash-starved National Republican Senatorial Committee is making a last-minute shift in its TV ad strategy.
CA Alleges Catholic Hospital Illegally Denied Abortion Care
The state of California is suing Providence St. Joseph Hospital of Eureka for allegedly breaking the law by refusing emergency abortion case to a woman carrying twins when her water broke at 15 weeks.
California Bans Legacy Admissions
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed into law a new ban on legacy admissions at private colleges and universities that is scheduled to go into effect in the fall of 2025.
NYC Mayor Adams Could Face Additional Criminal Charges
During a hearing in federal court in Manhattan, prosecutors indicated that more charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams are possible and that new charges against additional defendants are likely.
Hurricane Helene Update
- Hurricane Helene’s death toll rose to 180, making it the third deadliest hurricane to strike the U.S. and its territories in the last 50 years.
- After visiting the Carolinas on Wednesday, President Biden will be surveying storm damage in Florida and Georgia on Thursday.
- The hidden toll of hurricanes: “An analysis of more than 500 tropical cyclones that have hit the United States since 1930 found that the average hurricane leads to as many as 11,000 excess deaths — a figure hundreds of times higher than official mortality estimates.”
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UNSEALED: Jack Smith Details Why Trump Isn’t Immune From Prosecution For Jan. 6 Crimes
Nearly two years after Jack Smith was named special counsel, a federal judge has unsealed the most damning evidence Smith’s collected to demonstrate that Trump sought to block the peaceful transfer of power in the 2020 election.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan for the District of Columbia ordered that the filing, clocking in at 165 pages, be released after a back-and-forth with the Trump team over redactions.
The motion, styled as a legal brief addressing why Trump’s actions are not immune from prosecution under the Supreme Court’s July immunity decision, cites exhibits and evidence about Trump’s 2020 self-coup attempt. Its appendices have not yet been released. It may be Smith’s last chance to show his case to the public: Trump has said that, if he wins in November, he will have the DOJ terminate the cases against him.
We’ll be combing through the motion below.
DHS Warns Every Level Of Election Admin Could Be Targeted By Domestic Extremists Next Month
The Department of Homeland Security is warning that domestic violent extremists, many of whom will be motivated by political policy and ideological grievances, pose the most “significant physical threat” to the election system and those who will work to administer it next month.
Continue reading “DHS Warns Every Level Of Election Admin Could Be Targeted By Domestic Extremists Next Month”Have Pollsters Figured Out How to Poll for Trumpers?
One thing we’ve talked about a lot this year in the Backchannel and the podcast is changes pollsters have made to their methodologies over recent years, in large part because of 2016 and 2020 polling errors tied to Trump. Kyle Kondick, of Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, posted two good links on this that I wanted to share with you. The first is this short interview with Professor Charles Franklin of Marquette Law School who runs what is generally considered the signature in-state poll in Wisconsin and one of the most reliable nationwide. (Some of you may remember that Franklin was our polling methodology advisor back in the days of TPMPollTracker.) Then there’s this short article which goes over the changes industry-wide.
Continue reading “Have Pollsters Figured Out How to Poll for Trumpers?”More on GOTV and Campaign Field Operations
This note from TPM Reader DK doesn’t answer for us the questions we discussed yesterday about Republican GOTV efforts. But it does point to key questions to ask to find out more. And I found it just a fascinating window into the nuts and bolts of campaign field operations.
Continue reading “More on GOTV and Campaign Field Operations”I’ve done GOTV for two decades, including my own campaign long ago. A few observations:
Tim Walz Lowers The Boom On JD Vance Over Jan. 6
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
4th Quarter Comeback
After a performance that was at times bumbling and excessively amiable, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) flashed some steel at the very end of the vice presidential debate, pinning JD Vance to the mat over whether he still thinks Donald Trump won the 2020 election.
Vance bobbed and weaved but never responded, at which point Walz delivered his toughest line of the night: “That is a damning non-answer.”
Claiming Trump won in 2020 remains a litmus test for Republican candidates everywhere, and Vance was not about to fail that test on a national stage with Trump himself live-tweeting the debate. It confirmed for a national TV audience that Vance remains under the sway of Trump’s cultish demand that his supporters embrace his alternate reality.
Most of Vance’s debate points had that same slavish flavor, but they were more subtle and probably beyond the ability of the average voter to detect. When he insisted against all evidence and reason that Trump was Obamacare’s biggest supporter or feigned concern about the plight of women in the Trump-created post-Dobbs world or soft-pedaled his own prior strident criticisms of Trump, Vance was lying, sure, but it’s more egregious and pathological than mere mistruths.
The alternative reality of election denialism is a cocoon of conspiracies and self-adulation and psychological coping that continues to the present. Earlier in the day on the campaign trail, Trump again extended the Big Lie to 2024 and to any election he loses:
REPORTER: Do you trust the election process this time around?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 1, 2024
TRUMP: I'll let you know in about 33 days pic.twitter.com/nLCUOoy9IF
For Vance’s part, he has embraced his role as the anti-Pence, saying he would have refused to certify the Electoral College results and asked for alternative slates of electors from the states. It was a precursor for Walz’s second strongest line of the night, pointing out that Vance was only on the debate stage because Trump had dumped his own vice president for doing the right thing on Jan. 6.
Jack Smith Moves Aggressively In Jan. 6 Case
In an unusually quick response, Special Counsel Jack Smith took only three hours to file his retort to a Donald Trump move to block unsealing of some elements of the Jan. 6 case against him. It’s all part of an effort by Trump to prevent the public from seeing the bulk of Smith’s case, including never-before-revealed evidence, before the November election.
ICYMI: TPM’s Veep Debate Coverage
- The TPM live blog: Walz: I’m Debating Vance Because Trump Dumped Pence Over Jan. 6
- The TPM wrap-up: Vance Rolls Out Alternate-Reality Persona, And Other Takeaways From The 2024 VP Debate
- TPM’s Josh Marshall:
It drove me crazy that Walz spent half his time saying Vance was probably a good guy and they could probably agree on a lot. Drove me crazy. It drove me nuts that Walz didn’t swing hard at some hanging curveballs Vance threw over the plate. (He finally did on democracy.) But I’m not the audience for this stuff. I think the avuncular nice guy thing probably worked for him with the people who matter. Not my cup of tea but I’m not the average voter.
Quote Of The Day
JD Vance, to debate moderator Margaret Brennan: “Margaret, the rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check!”
LOL: Trump Tries On New Abortion Position For Size
One tangible result of the vice presidential debate was that Trump rolled out a whole new position on abortion, now claiming he would veto any federal abortion ban.
This latest about-face comes after Trump denied in the last presidential debate that he would veto a national abortion ban and gave JD Vance shit about outrunning him on this issue, which forced Vance to offer a mea culpa.
Basically, Trump has no firm public position on abortion and is reacting in real time to what he senses the most popular answer is for the given audience.
Trump’s Rough Day In Wisconsin
Donald Trump’s continued deterioration was so apparent during appearances Tuesday in Wisconsin that the WaPo mustered this headline: “Trump mixes up words, swerves among subjects in off-topic speech.”
For a complete rundown, Public Notice has a blow-by-blow account of Trump’s “decompensation” during yesterday’s two speeches.
Among the lowlights:
- Trump dismissed U.S. soldiers’ traumatic brain injuries in Iraq as “headaches.”
- Trump continued his racist attacks on immigrants, which has recently focused primarily on Black immigrants from Haiti and now the Congo:
Senate Dems Slowly React To Nascent Trump-Egypt Scandal
Two weeks ago, TPM reported that some Democratic senators were calling for Senate investigations into allegations in the Washington Post in August about a now-closed DOJ probe into whether Egypt funneled $10 million to Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign for president.
Yesterday, four Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee — Richard Blumenthal (CT), Mazie Hirono (HI), Alex Padilla (CA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) — signed a letter asking DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz to look into whether Trump appointees “interfered with and, ultimately, blocked” the federal probe into the underlying allegations.
Hurricane Helene Update
- The death toll in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in the Southeast has risen to at least 137 people across North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia – but the number of confirmed deaths remain in considerable flux.
- Today, President Biden will review the damage in western North Carolina from the air and make appearances in Raleigh and South Carolina, while Vice President Harris will travel to hard-hit Augusta, Georgia.
- The flooding in and around Spruce Pine, North Carolina, has “imperiled the operations of mines that produce the world’s purest quartz sand — an irreplaceable ingredient for manufacturing components at the heart of smartphones and other electronic devices,” the WaPo reports.
- Helene has upended voting in North Carolina, a key battleground state.
Slaying With Upper Midwest Humor
"We've got 20% of the world's fresh water." – @Tim_Walz
— Lake Superior 🌊 (@LakeSuperior) October 2, 2024
Was hoping to get a callout by name, but that'll do.
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Vance Rolls Out Alternate-Reality Persona, And Other Takeaways From The 2024 VP Debate
The first and likely only vice presidential debate of 2024 was a far cry from the emotional rollercoaster of the first two presidential debates, the first of which ended President Joe Biden’s candidacy and the second of which drew a profound contrast between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump. The discussion tonight had few fireworks; it was dense, as Vance and Walz moved swiftly through their talking points. It was more Midwestern nice: there were nearly no personal attacks, but lots of agreement through gritted teeth.
Continue reading “Vance Rolls Out Alternate-Reality Persona, And Other Takeaways From The 2024 VP Debate”Debate Wrap Up
So I think this debate was basically a draw. Vance was smooth and organized. He approached normality. He was often clearer than Tim Walz was. Tim Walz is not a terribly articulate debater. That’s something the Harris campaign tried to telegraph last week. And I think it was a good idea to do that. On those fronts, Vance did better. Vance was also on message. He literally tied everything to inflation and immigration. Even the most preposterous things he brought back to those issues. Vance definitely did well on that front too.
But Walz did better than I think some people may realize because with all the jumbliness and clackity clink he got in the story of the women whose lives were lost or endangered by Trump state abortion bans. Again and again, there were key points, key stories that the Harris campaign clearly wanted him to say from the stage and he did, even if they were surrounded by Walzian word fugue. And that really matters more than how focused he was as a speaker. He got those things. That matters more.
Continue reading “Debate Wrap Up”Walz: I’m Debating Vance Because Trump Dumped Pence Over Jan. 6
Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) faced off in New York City, the first and only scheduled vice presidential debate before the election.
Follow our live coverage below: