Tonight we have the second presidential debate of the 2024 campaign cycle and the first for this presidential campaign. Much as I would like to buck the conventional wisdom, the stakes are genuinely quite high. One poll I saw this morning showed a remarkably high, really impossibly high percentage of voters said that the debate would have a major impact on their vote: 30%. But as debate watchers we come back to a basic conundrum: if you’re paying enough attention to be worked up about the debate you are almost certainly not the intended audience. And not only are you not the intended audience but your experience of the campaign and politics generally is so totally different from that of the intended audience that absent a real suspension of disbelief, a real effort to separate yourself from your own impressions, you’ll have a hard time knowing how each candidate did for the audience that matters.
Continue reading “Getting Our Heads Around Tonight’s Debate”Harris Refuses To Concede The Politics Of Dominance To Trump
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
No Subtlety Left In Dominance Politics
Not that long ago the performative dance of dominance politics was more of a burlesque show, but any nuance has long since been stripped away in the Trump era. It’s full frontal now, with physical size and naked power being wielded unapologetically.
It yielded this cheeky NYT style section piece titled: Trump Mocks Harris’s Height. But Her Fans See a Certain Stature. This sentence hurt my soul: “But seeing the candidates together may make many who tune in for the debate aware of her actual height for the first time — a reality that could have been previously masked by what some call Tall Energy.”
The Harris campaign is giving as good as it gets, rolling out a debate day national cable TV ad that highlights former President Obama’s troll of the size of Trump’s crowds/manhood:
Immediately adjacent to the low-brow contest over physical size and prowess, is Trump’s assertion of unbridled political power as its own show of dominance. Every transgression – including his racist and xenophobic attacks, his threats to prosecute and jail his foes, and his refusal to abide by the election results – is not only a direct attack on democracy but a flex, showing off his own force of will by his rejection of existing norms.
There’s no reason to think that tonight’s debate stage won’t be a tableau of dominance politics, especially with the dynamic of Trump facing off against a biracial woman. But it comes with heightened awareness on the Democratic side that Harris stands to lose if she lets Trump dominate the physical space like he tried to by stalking Hillary Clinton on stage in 2016 or by talking over Biden in 2020 or by deploying rapid-fire falsehoods in 2024.
It’s the professional wrestling-ization of our national politics, a reality TV version of exaggerated masculinity with puffed-out chests, cock-of-the-walk strutting, and bulging veins. Democrats have long ceded this base-level stagecraft to Republicans. But with Trump himself a product of pro wrestling and intuitively familiar with its themes, even to the point of his willingness to play the heel role, the Harris campaign seems determined not to retreat from confrontation on the lizard brain level.
I find this all a dreary way to approach watching tonight’s debate, but this is where we are.
Watch With Us!
The TPM team will be all over tonight’s debate in Philadelphia, so come back and join us this evening. It begins at 9 p.m. ET on ABC and will be moderated by ABC News’ David Muir and Linsey Davis.
Cynicism Watch
- WaPo: Vance, Republicans elevate false claims about immigrants eating American pets
- TNR: MAGA Launches Most Unbelievable Conspiracy Yet—on Migrants Eating Pets
- NBC News: Ohio police have ‘no credible reports’ of Haitian immigrants harming pets, contradicting JD Vance’s claim
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Arizona election officials tell TPM’s Khaya Himmelman that CPAC’s request to monitor ballot drop boxes is akin to an “arsonist calling the fire department.”
Good Read
Semafor: Mysterious influencer network pushed sexual smears of Harris
Quote Of The Day
Thomas Zimmer, on how to think about the role of the Cheneys and other anti-Trump Republicans:
What these prominent Republicans do in not just publicly siding against Trump, but supporting the Democratic candidate in a presidential election deserves appreciation, as they draw a line against autocracy, at considerable personal cost – a line that must be held if democracy is to have any chance at survival. At the same time, we must not help perpetuate their deeply flawed diagnosis of Trumpism as a mere aberration from an otherwise noble conservative tradition and venerable Republican Party – a type of nostalgic myth that, not coincidentally, tends to obscure their own role in tolerating and condoning the forces that have fueled Trump’s rise and their own complicity in elevating extremism within the GOP.
Terrorgram Leaders Indicted In California
ABC News: “The Justice Department on Monday charged two California individuals who were alleged leaders of a white supremacist group that wanted to ignite a race war in the United States and allegedly plotted to kill “high value” targets and incite its followers to carry out terror attacks around the globe.”
What The What?
NYT: “An eccentric German princess who evolved from a 1980s punk style icon to a conservative Catholic known for hobnobbing with far-right figures said on Monday that she hosted Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and his wife at her castle during a July 2023 music festival.”
Kagan Keeps Pressing For SCOTUS Ethics Reform
Justice Elena Kagan continued to advocate for an enforcement mechanism for the Supreme Court’s new ethics code, during an appearance Monday at NYU’s law school.
Missouri Abortion Rights Measure In Peril
The Missouri Supreme Court is expected to consider this morning whether an important abortion rights measure will remain on the November ballot:
- Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh ruled the abortion rights measure was invalid because it “did not sufficiently inform voters who signed petitions for the proposed amendment of its ramifications,” the WaPo reports.
- Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft reversed himself and revoked his prior certification of the measure and removing it from the November ballot.
- With the deadline for getting the measure on the ballot looming at 5 p.m. CT today, the state Supreme Court has set a hearing on the matter for 8:30 a.m. CT.
On The Hill
- Punchbowl: “Speaker Mike Johnson’s self-described “righteous” idea to pair a six-month funding bill with the SAVE Act is on the brink of imploding. A number of House Republicans are unpersuaded by the proposal, describing it as irresponsible and ill-advised.”
- Politico: Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
- WaPo: Congress to grill Andrew Cuomo on 2020 order linked to nursing home deaths
‘A Voice Of Rolling Thunder’
The marvelous James Earl Jones is dead at the age of 93.
Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!
Another Poll Check In
I wanted to look at a decent number of new polls out today. They paint a mixed and complicated picture. There’s no other way to put it. Two new national polls have a tied race. On it’s face, that’s not a great sign for Harris. A tie popular vote is very likely to mean defeat. But it’s not that simple. The two polls are from Pew and the Harris Poll. Pew is a very solid poll but generally unfriendly to Democrats in recent cycles. So for instance at the height of the Kamala surge they had her up one point over Trump. Now it’s even. Not a big a difference. The Harris poll (really the zombie Harris poll now owned and operated by Mark Penn) meanwhile is not just extremely unfriendly to Democrats but closer to Rasmussen territory. (Just to avoid confusion, let’s christen it the Penn-Harris poll.) In other words, we’re not just talking a house effect generally unfriendly to Democrats but really a question in my mind whether it should even be considered a legitimate poll. Taken together I think it’s fair to assume there may be some leveling off of Kamala Harris’ support. But I don’t think there’s real evidence of some kind of sea change in the race.
Continue reading “Another Poll Check In”DeSantis Finds New Dystopian Activity To Keep His Election Police Busy
By now you’ve likely read details of the project of intimidation underway in Florida as voters in the state try to place a measure to protect abortion on November’s ballot. The Tampa Bay Times and other local news outlets have reported in recent days that police have been going to the homes of Florida residents who signed a petition to help get Amendment 4 on the ballot and questioning individuals about their signatures. Big picture, it looks as if Gov. Ron DeSantis has come up with a new, creatively frightening way to turn Florida into a police state.
Continue reading “DeSantis Finds New Dystopian Activity To Keep His Election Police Busy”Trump’s Authoritarian Promise Is Distilled Into A Single Paragraph
Good morning — it’s John and Nicole today. David will be back on Tuesday.
As always: a lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Stop the Steal 2.0 cranks into a higher gear
Donald Trump stepped off stage in Wisconsin Saturday and blasted out a social media post that crammed his authoritarian promise into a 159-word paragraph. The Truth Social post went up at 7:01 p.m. ET; it was copy-pasted over to the platform formerly known as Twitter some two hours later, where the larger audience there heard the same message. (The candidate’s X account has largely been posting campaign memes and press release-like announcements since it was reactivated.)
CEASE & DESIST: I, together with many Attorneys and Legal Scholars, am watching the Sanctity of the 2024 Presidential Election very closely because I know, better than most, the rampant Cheating and Skullduggery that has taken place by the Democrats in the 2020 Presidential…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 8, 2024
It was a return to dangerous form after the Republican candidate spent August subdued, seemingly sad that he would not be facing Joe Biden after all. The post claimed, incorrectly, that Democrats stole the election in 2020. It promised votes in the 2024 election “will be under the closest professional scrutiny.”
“WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences,” Trump wrote. This threat, he promised, “extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials.”
In a way, this is familiar. It’s also quite serious: a promise to imprison his enemies, junta-style, that extends not just to his political foes but to those who run elections and those who donate money to candidates. It’s a broadside against Democratic society of the sort that was unrivaled in American history before Trump. It’s a kind of high water mark, even for him.
The threat functions on a few levels. It is a bid to instill fear in those who oppose him, to intimidate voters — a note picked up on by Marc Elias, a longtime Democratic election lawyer currently working for Kamala Harris. “We won’t let Donald Trump intimidate us,” he wrote on social media. “We won’t let him suppress the vote.”
The ominous post also signals to his base, again, that any election Trump loses is not one they can accept. And it rehashes the 2020 lie, after various allies (including the white nationalist Groypers) expressed exasperation that he, briefly, dropped his election denying during a podcast interview last week.
On Sunday, he moved from the broad to the specific, pointing in a Truth Social post to an interview on Tucker Carlson’s show to claim, falsely, that 20 percent of mail in ballots in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania are fraudulent. “We will WIN Pennsylvania by a lot, unless the Dems are allowed to CHEAT. THE RNC MUST ACTIVATE, NOW!!!” he declared. (Carlson’s guest was talking — inaccurately — about the 2020 election. Trump’s Truth Social post suggests that the statistic applied instead to 2024, which would be even more preposterous: Pennsylvania officials have not processed any 2024 mail-in ballots yet.)
Like in 2020, there’s little room to be surprised here. Trump — especially over the last 72 hours — is telling us exactly what to expect in November.
Seriously and literally, pt. 1,000,000
Trump had some other things to say while on the stump over the weekend.
- He theorized that executing his plan to deport undocumented immigrants would be “a bloody story.”
Trump yesterday in Wisconsin on his promised mass deportation: "Getting them out will be a bloody story." pic.twitter.com/JlcpdWkUG4
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 8, 2024
- He promised to get rid of the Department of Education, telling his Wisconsin audience he would “send it back to the states” so that “Ron Johnson can run it.”
Trump: "I'm dying to get back to do this: We will ultimately eliminate the federal Department of Education and send education back to Wisconsin and back to the states. We'll send it back to the states so that Ron Johnson can run it." pic.twitter.com/5sN1vzzamG
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 7, 2024
Project 2025, stand back and stand by
In case you were still keeping tabs, political prosecutions, mass deportations, and scrapping the Department of Education are all part of Project 2025, the deeply unpopular agenda for a second term produced by reactionary think tanks and former Trump administration staffers about which the former president insists he knows nothing.
Debate week round-up
- A pre-debate Times/Siena poll was released Sunday, showing Trump one point ahead of Harris. Times polling guy Nate Cohn tries to make sense of whether this poll is an outlier or signals a shift in the race.
- A CBS/YouGov poll finds Trump and Harris effectively tied in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. No matter what poll or polling aggregator you look at, the race is incredibly close.
- Harris and Walz plan to campaign in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin following the debate.
- Liz Cheney revealed Friday that her notorious dad, Dick Cheney, is worried enough about Trump that he, too, will be voting for Harris. “In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” the elder Cheney said in a statement later that day.
- At the Saturday rally, Trump shrugged off the DOJ’s series of recent announcements about Russia’s attempt to interfere in the election, including the allegation that Russian operatives had tricked very high profile, U.S.-based conservative influencers into ending up on RT’s payroll. “It’s Russia, Russia, Russia all over again,” Trump said.
- ‘Rigged’: Trump reported plan of attack during the debate is to whine about the rules and accuse the moderators of being biased. Nothing new there.
House GOP may force shutdown to appease Trump
The House is back from recess this week and expected to begin deliberations on spending bills ahead of a government funding deadline at the end of the month. Nicole wrote last week about House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) loyalty to Trump and how the speaker may find himself caving to demands from his far-right flank, which includes attaching a redundant bill that makes non-citizen voting illegal (it’s already illegal) to any stopgap funding bill brought to the floor in coming weeks.
In doing so, House Republicans are helping Trump spread lies about the myth of non-citizen voting, and giving him some baseless voter fraud fodder to point to if he loses in the fall.
Politico has new reporting this morning that suggests Johnson may be having second thoughts about linking the pieces of legislation, as his speakership may also be hanging in the balance: Johnson’s future speakership could hinge on the spending fight.
Ken Paxton continues to terrorize constituents
AP: Texas sues to stop a rule that shields the medical records of women who seek abortions elsewhere
It’s not clear whether public officials have sought patient medical records related to abortion. But the state has sought records related to gender-affirming care, demanding them from at least two out-of-state health centers last year. Like many Republican-controlled states, Texas bans gender-affirming care for minors.
Ron DeSantis continues to terrorize constituents
Tampa Bay Times: Floridians unnerved by police visits about abortion petition signatures
The officer’s visit appears to be part of a broad — and unusual — effort by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration to inspect thousands of already verified and validated petitions for Amendment 4 in the final two months before Election Day. The amendment would overturn Florida’s six-week abortion ban by proposing to protect abortion access in Florida until viability.
Good luck this week
David has gotten into recommending music in here lately, a development we support. In that spirit, John recommends you take a listen to MJ Lenderman’s new album, ideal for fans of Bill Callahan, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Silver Jews, Songs: Ohia, Wilco, Waxahatchee, that sort of thing.
Have a good day. 🫡
Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!
Pacing Yourself with Polls
I wanted to share a few thoughts about the Times/Siena poll which has sent more than a few people reeling today. If you haven’t seen it, the new Times/Siena poll shows Donald Trump with a one-point lead over Harris nationally. That’s the first major poll to show Trump in the lead in weeks. What do I make of it? Not a huge amount. And I would recommend the same to anyone else.
It’s certainly possible that this is a leading indicator of a shift in support away from Harris after a month and a half of generally positive news and poll numbers. But you simply can’t change your whole theory of the race around a single poll. I’m not going to get into picking apart all the details of the poll. And I’m definitely not going to try to unskew it. It’s a quality poll. But it does show a very different race than other polls we’re seeing — ones taken over the same time period, ones with which we’re able to make pretty straightforward apples-to-apples comparisons. It’s not just the top-line number that’s different. It shows a more popular Trump, a less popular Harris, key demographics much closer to how they were when Joe Biden was still the nominee.
Continue reading “Pacing Yourself with Polls”The Art Of The Sentencing
Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕
If Trump’s sentencing hearing happens on its new date of November 26, we’ll know a few things.
Continue reading “The Art Of The Sentencing”Inside TPM with John Light
One of the great mysteries of the world is how the news gets made. Theories abound. The reality is every newsroom is its own little ecosystem with its own way of doing things. I worked in several newsrooms before arriving at TPM, and TPM operates in a way that was vastly different from any other. I noticed the conspicuous lack of meetings and that nobody really had a “beat” — two things I had supposed were universal. But of course, TPM is not your average news gathering operation. So, in this episode of Inside TPM, I spoke to Managing Editor John Light to find out how the news gets made at TPM. We discussed how the team decides what is newsworthy, how the team tries to serve readers, and even how he thinks TPM would cover Tony Soprano if he were a real person. (The answer surprised me!)
All that and more in this month’s episode of Inside TPM.
BREAKING … Or At Least Something Josh Is Obsessing About
So after my last update below, new reports from TPM readers have confirmed that the Mailer Storm overwhelming the mailboxes of partisan Democrats in Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia are all coming from a single zip code in Jacksonville, Florida (32204) and presumably a single vendor. This notwithstanding the fact that they are all going out as sent from the respective Republican parties of the respective states. That’s not terribly strange in itself. Direct mail is a national business. It’s actually not okay to use state parties, which have preferential mail rates, as pure passthroughs, but I’m told it’s a widespread practice and rules against it are basically unenforced. The one exception may be the mailers going out in Pennsylvania. The mailers are all the same in every state. But the ones in Pennsylvania are the only ones that are from a state party committee rather than the state party, and their “nonprofit indicia” mark does not include the the zip code they are mailed from.
Judge Delays Trump’s New York Sentencing Until After Election
The New York state judge presiding over Donald Trump’s hush money case pushed the GOP candidate’s sentencing until past the November election, saying in a Friday order that the upcoming election had played a role in his decision.
Continue reading “Judge Delays Trump’s New York Sentencing Until After Election”