“Joe Biden on Thursday condemned the grim and divisive path that he asserted President Trump has set the country on, pledging in his acceptance speech of the Democratic presidential nomination to be a leader for all Americans, rather than playing only to his base,” Politico reports.
Said Biden: “Here and now I give you my word. If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. I will be an ally of the light, not the darkness.”
“The final night of the Democratic National Convention was a star-studded affair, stacked with beloved celebrities and respected politicians — but it was 13-year-old Brayden Harrington who stole the show,” The Week reports.
Said Brayden: “About a few months ago I met him in New Hampshire. He told me that we were members of the same club: we stutter. It was really amazing to hear that someone like me became vice president.”
If you missed it, watch the video.
The fourth night of the Democratic convention will be televised and livestreamed from 9 p.m to 11 p.m. ET.
Speakers include: Joe Biden, Sen. Cory Booker, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Sen. Chris Coons and the Biden family. Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfuss will emcee.
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President Trump’s campaign plastered The Washington Post with digital ads linking to claims debunked by the paper’s fact checkers.
Political Wire has also been flooded with Trump campaign ads in recent days.
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Steve Bannon claimed his arrest over a scheme to defraud donors to a campaign supposedly raising funds for a border wall was politically motivated, CNN reports.
Said Bannon: “This entire fiasco is to stop people who want to build the wall.”
President Trump went on a tangent about sharks during a speech on foreign policy Thursday—seeming to confirm a story from Stormy Daniels about their alleged affair, the Daily Beast reports.
After swatting a mosquito away from his podium, Trump said he “doesn’t like sharks, either,” then explained that he would not donate to a charity that supported sharks.
Adult-film star Stormy Daniels once told a magazine that Trump is terrified by sharks. She said he was enthralled by Discovery Channel’s Shark Week and told her in his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel that he “would never donate to any charity that helps sharks.”
“A prominent Washington-based conservative advocacy organization is promoting a deceptive digital ad campaign that is stoking fears about mail-in voting and targeting battleground states with high concentrations of minority voters,” the Washington Post reports.
“The website, called Protect My Vote, warns baselessly that mail balloting results in ‘lost votes and lost rights.'”
A new Saint Anselm College poll in New Hampshire shows Joe Biden leading Donald Trump, 51% to 43%.
New York Times: “Late last month, as the Texas Republican Party was shifting into campaign mode, it unveiled a new slogan, lifting a rallying cry straight from a once-unthinkable source: the internet-driven conspiracy theory known as QAnon.”
“The new catchphrase, ‘We Are the Storm,’ is an unsubtle cue to a group that the F.B.I. has labeled a potential domestic terrorist threat. It is instantly recognizable among QAnon adherents, signaling what they claim is a coming conflagration between President Trump and what they allege, falsely, is a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophile Democrats who seek to dominate America and the world.”
“The slogan can be found all over social media posts by QAnon followers, and now, too, in emails from the Texas Republican Party and on the T-shirts, hats and sweatshirts that it sells.”
President Trump claimed it’s not possible to do fair polls of registered voters — only likely voters — because many registered voters have died, CNN reports.
He did not explain how dead voters answer polls.
Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) has filed the paperwork to run for his old office, the Washington Post reports.
But a spokesman said he won’t make an official decision to run until after the general election in November.
“Over 70 former Republican national security officials including ex-CIA and FBI chiefs will endorse Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Friday while launching a scathing indictment of President Donald Trump, calling him corrupt and unfit to serve,” Reuters reports.
New York Times: “The new letter, released just hours before Mr. Biden formally accepts the nomination, lays out a 10-point indictment of Mr. Trump’s actions, accusing him of undermining the rule of law, aligning himself with dictators and engaging ‘in corrupt behavior that renders him unfit to serve as president.'”
“If you want a vision of your life under Biden’s presidency, think of the smoldering ruins of Minneapolis, the violent anarchy of Portland, the bloodstained sidewalks of Chicago, and imagine the mayhem coming to your town and every single town in America.”
— President Trump, quoted by CNN, apparently forgetting that he’s president now.
“The White House asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to reverse a lower court ruling that said President Trump’s practice of blocking critics on Twitter ran afoul of the Constitution’s First Amendment,” CNBC reports.
“In early May 2018, after weeks of phone calls and private meetings, 11 of the president’s most senior advisers were called to the White House Situation Room where they were asked, by a show of hands vote, to decide the fate of thousands of migrant parents and their children,” NBC News reports.
“Trump’s senior adviser Stephen Miller led the meeting and he was angry at what he saw as defiance by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen…”
“Frustrated, Miller accused Nielsen of stalling and then demanded a show of hands. Who was in favor of moving forward, he asked? A sea of hands went up. Nielsen kept hers down. It was clear she had been outvoted.”
“The Clintons have sold out their own people for cold cash. They are grifters.”
— Steve Bannon, in a 2016 interview on Breitbart News Radio, while adding the Clintons were running “a money laundering operation.”
Bannon today was charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors.
Deadline: “According to early numbers from Nielsen, 21.4 million watched during the 10 PM ET hour across six networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, MSNBC and CNN. That is a boost from the 18.6 million who watched on Tuesday and the 18.7 million who watched on Monday.”
“The TV viewership is off by about 11% from the third night of the Democratic Convention in 2016.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.