James Carville talked to the New York Times about Kamala Harris’ campaign: “It strikes me that they are really good at big events. I don’t know how good they are at trench warfare, at the day-to-day news cycle. They haven’t done anything wrong. But they haven’t really done a lot in the past couple of weeks.”
If she does lose, he added: “It will be quite a mess.”
“Heading into the final three weeks of the 2024 election, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio will still not say whether his running mate won or lost the last race for the White House,” the New York Times reports.
“In an interview with The New York Times that will be published on Saturday, Mr. Vance repeatedly refused to acknowledge former President Donald Trump’s defeat and went to even greater lengths to avoid doing so than he did during the vice-presidential debate earlier this month.”
Wall Street Journal: “Exploiting public confusion, grief and communication breakdowns, white supremacist groups are now showing up in vulnerable storm-ravaged communities in Florida and North Carolina. They blend in among the many legitimate church or other charity workers that have rushed in to help.”
“But these militia groups offer aid while filming propaganda videos that both amplify falsehoods about the government response and help the groups remake their image as patriotic civic organizations for men.”
“You’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses, I’ve got a problem with that. Because part of it makes me think—and I’m speaking to men directly—part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that. You’re thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you, because you think that’s a sign of strength, because that’s what being a man is? Putting women down? That’s not acceptable.”
— Barack Obama, quoted by CNN.
New York Times: “Since former President Donald Trump announced his 2024 candidacy, his campaign has promoted dozens of contests for supporters to win signed merchandise or ‘VIP’ trips to meet Mr. Trump. It has offered adherents myriad ‘exclusive’ opportunities to join clubs to give counsel to Mr. Trump, and it has repeatedly claimed that Mr. Trump is personally reviewing lists of small donors.”
“But most of the contests seem to have no winners, and the campaign did not confirm or provide evidence that the club members have had any opportunity to advise the former president or that Mr. Trump is paying any attention to small donor rosters.”
“Senate candidates this cycle are largely steering clear of the debate stage, in some cases avoiding it altogether, marking a major change from past years as campaigns question the debates’ importance,” The Hill reports.
“Mark Milley, a retired U.S. army general who was chair of the joint chiefs of staff under Donald Trump and Joe Biden, fears being recalled to uniform and court-martialed should Trump defeat Kamala Harris next month and return to power,” The Guardian reports.
“ABC warned its audience before airing a disturbing political ad the network said it was required to broadcast during a live episode of The View, with the commercial depicting graphic imagery from abortions and comparing several celebrities — including all six cohosts of The View — to Nazis,” Entertainment Weekly reports.
This warning message appeared: “The following is a paid political advertisement, and the ABC Television Network is required to carry it by federal law. The advertisement contains scenes that may be disturbing to children. Viewer discretion is advised.”
“The explicit clip was fronted by presidential candidate and anti-abortion activist Randall Terry.”
Vogue is out this morning with a profile of Kamala that includes photographs by Annie Leibovitz.
Susan Glasser: “Of course, that has not stopped both parties from doing what they always do. In Democrats’ case, this appears to be the week when their traditional pre-election panic has set in. Strategists are now warning that Harris has ‘plateaued,’ that she ‘needs to be more aggressive,’ and that she has to reinvent herself as a centrist to ‘seal the deal.’ In recent days, I’ve read articles dissecting her challenges with male voters, Black male voters, Arab voters, Latino voters, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin voters. She also, apparently, has a Biden problem, a Bibi problem, and a hurricane problem.”
“If Democratic worrying were a natural resource, there would never be an energy crisis again. And, to be clear, sometimes the freakout is entirely justified…”
“Republicans, however, suffer from an inverse affliction, a form of congenital overconfidence that comes straight from the leader who has reinvented the GOP in his braggadocious image. In Trumpworld, there are never any bad polls or bad debates. Trump says his lead is ‘GETTING BIGGER BY THE DAY.’ On Thursday, he even posted what appeared to be an internal memo from his pollster, showing him ahead in all seven battleground states. And who’s going to quibble with him on his very own social-media platform, never mind that this week of polling shows, like all the other weeks, that Harris is (very) narrowly beating him.”
“Trump is the only candidate of my lifetime who can make a reliable applause line out of the latest Rasmussen poll. He can be convicted, humiliated, defeated in an election, but somehow he’s always on the attack, never on the defensive.”
“The Democratic governors of the states making up what is known as the ‘Blue Wall’ launched a bus tour on Friday aimed at ginning up support for Vice President Harris in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin,” The Hill reports.
“With less than a month before the election, Donald Trump is planning a string of campaign stops in states he’s got little chance of winning,” Bloomberg reports.
“The showy events in places Republicans tend to avoid this late in the election do guarantee the former president free media attention that he might not get with another rally in Trump Country. His campaign says that keeping a well-known former president to the most competitive states is an old-fashioned notion.”
Said Trump adviser Chris LaCivita: “It’s national coverage. In the day and age of the internet, the days of just going to a specific state to carry your message are long gone.”
Earlier for members: Why Trump Is Holding Rallies in Blue States
Bob Woodward found a tape of an interview he and Carl Bernstein did with Donald Trump in 1989.
Said Trump: “People ask me and they might ask you guys, you know, where are you going to be in 10 years? I think anybody that says where they’re going to be is a schmuck.”
He added: “The world changes. You’ll have depressions. You’ll have recessions. You’ll have upswings. You’ll have downswings. You’ll have wars. Things that are beyond your control or in most cases beyond people’s control. So you really do have to go with the punches and it’s bad to predict too far out in advance, you know, where you’re going to be.”
“In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, the richest man in the world has involved himself in the U.S. election in a manner unparalleled in modern history,” the New York Times reports.
“Elon Musk, seen over the weekend jumping for joy alongside former President Donald J. Trump at a rally in Butler, Pa., is now talking to the Republican candidate multiple times a week.”
“He has effectively moved his base of operations to Pennsylvania, the place that he has recently told confidants he believes is the linchpin to Mr. Trump’s re-election.”
Donald Trump’s campaign is packed with lobbyists, despite his earlier focus on “draining the swamp,” the Washington Post reports.
Speaker Mike Johnson appears set on raising the threshold for the motion to vacate that allows rank-and-file members to try to remove the speaker, Punchbowl News reports.
Said Johnson: “I don’t think there’s anybody who thinks the current sword of Damocles is sustainable.”
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.