Foreign Policy has the story of how Vice President Kamala Harris worked to diffuse a transition of power crisis in Guatemala.
“The democratic transition in Guatemala represents one of the clearest victories of U.S. President Joe Biden’s agenda to promote democracy worldwide, as well as a rare example of Harris’s national security team playing a distinct and direct role in shepherding it through.”
“Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is embarking on a high-profile, nationwide tour to promote her new memoir, Lovely One,” the AP reports.
“Jackson is using the book to trace her family’s rise from segregation to her confirmation as the first Black woman on the nation’s highest court in the span of one generation.”
A new SurveyUSA poll in Nebraska finds Sen. Deb Fischer (R) barely ahead of Dan Osborn (I) in the U.S. Senate race, 39% to 38%.
A YouGov poll released earlier in August showed a 2-point lead for incumbent Fischer, while an Impact Research poll taken the month prior showed a tied race.
Also of note: Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump in Nebraska’s second congressional district, 47% to 42%.
“Trump Media, the company majority-owned by former President Donald Trump, fell below $20 per share for the first time since the Truth Social maker started publicly trading,” CNBC reports.
“Trump’s stake of DJT stock is still worth more than $2.2 billion — more than half of his on-paper net worth, according to Forbes.”
“A lock-up agreement on Trump selling his stock is soon set to expire.”
“Voters go to the polls in eastern Germany on Sunday in two ballots that could yield the first state election win for a far-right party in the country since the end of World War II, putting fresh pressure on Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s embattled government,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
New York Times: “How can it be that a campaign that by all metrics is better off than it was in late June is now pushing a narrative that things are worse than they were when Mr. Biden was in the race?”
“It is because the Harris operation, like any campaign riding a wave of momentum, is suddenly worried about overconfidence.”
“Republicans are setting off a slew of legal fights in the battleground states ahead of the November election, raising suspicions among Kamala Harris and her Democratic allies that the underlying goal is to gin up doubts about the result if Donald Trump loses,” NBC News reports.
“All these claims look different on the surface. But the Harris campaign says there’s a pattern tying them together: Trump and his Republican allies want to sow confusion about the outcome should he lose. Democrats have submitted legal filings in at least one case that convey their misgivings about what they contend is the true purpose of the GOP litigation.”
“A defeated Trump could invoke the cases to revive his unfounded claim that election procedures are tainted in ways that should nullify the result.”
“Donald Trump’s pledge to turn the U.S. into the ‘crypto capital of the planet’ and implement industry-friendly policies could have a new beneficiary: his own family,” Politico reports.
“Trump’s eldest sons are gearing up to launch a new cryptocurrency venture called World Liberty Financial, which is already receiving a big social media boost from their father.“
“When Donald Trump launched his first presidential campaign nearly a decade ago, there was a deluge of concerns about his foreign financial entanglements. And rightfully so. Given the financial overlap between Trump, his family, his company, and a constellation of kleptocratic regimes, especially Russia, Trump presented an unprecedented opportunity for foreign regimes to directly access the White House and tilt American policy in the process,” New York Magazine reports.
“Now, with Trump running for the presidency once more, those concerns have hardly disappeared. If anything, foreign governments — including brand-new regimes that weren’t involved in Trump’s first whirlwind in the White House — have only spied new opportunities to burrow into his pockets and into a second administration.”
Former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who served under the Trump administration, warned Donald Trump against being too “big and strong” in his upcoming debate against Kamala Harris, The Hill reports.
Said Ross: “The only danger is Trump being big and strong and a man. He has to be careful not to be seen as piling on a woman. People don’t like to see a woman pushed too hard.”
An Israeli security official confirmed to ABC News that the names of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat and Eden Yerushalmi appeared in a July draft of the cease-fire deal as being slated for release in the first phase of the proposed agreement.
All three were among the six bodies recovered by Israeli forces from a tunnel in southern Gaza on Saturday.
John Podhoretz: The hostage murders and the new threat.
A new ABC News/ Ipsos poll finds Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump nationally among likely voters, 52% to 46%.
Key takeaway: “While the overall numbers are essentially unchanged from before the convention, the gender gap has widened. Harris leads by 13 points among women, 54% to 41%, while it’s Trump +5 points among men, 51% to 46%, for an 18-point gap.”
“Republicans from Donald Trump down, facing the first presidential election since the fall of Roe v. Wade, are still struggling to find their footing on the issue, caught between a conservative base and a majority of Americans who support abortion rights,” the Washington Post reports.
“Trump has sought to moderate his position but carries the baggage of helping to overturn Roe, the landmark abortion rights case, and this week he opposed an abortion rights measure in Florida after months of equivocating. Running mate JD Vance, like a host of other GOP candidates, has softened his stance — but found his past support for sweeping abortion restrictions hard to escape. And party leaders have been evasive on key policy questions such as their plans for abortion pill access.”
Axios: Texas abortion ban 3 years on: Forcing patients out of state, fueling 2024 debate.
“Vice President Kamala Harris is doubling down on criticism of former President Donald Trump following reports that Trump’s campaign staff got into a confrontation with an official at the Arlington National Cemetery last week,” Politico reports.
“The direct attack from Harris is the latest turn in the controversy over Trump’s Arlington visit Monday, where he attended a memorial with families of service members killed during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Democrats have characterized Trump’s visit as a crass attempt to politicize the military and its fallen service members, and several Democratic lawmakers have pressed the Pentagon to provide more details on whether the former commander-in-chief flouted laws that prohibit political activities at the military cemetery.”
New York Times: Others have politicized Arlington, but Trump’s approach has no precedent.
CNN: Arlington cemetery controversy deepens as Trump and Harris trade attacks.
“Protests have begun across Israel as anger at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mounts for failing to secure the release of hostages still held in Gaza, after the announcement that the bodies of six hostages were recovered from the enclave,” CNN reports.
Axios: Israel recovers bodies of six hostages held by Hamas, including American citizen.
Wall Street Journal: “If Congress doesn’t act by the end of 2025, income taxes will go up for most households. An analysis by the Tax Foundation shows that, on average, taxes would rise in every single county in the country—urban or rural, wealthy or poor—but the amounts vary, as you will see below. The analysis doesn’t speak to the median household’s tax bill, but it shows how much more people in each area would be paying.”
“Lawmakers in both parties say they want to avoid these increases, which amount to hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Republicans want to extend all the expiring tax cuts, while Democrats want to keep the reductions for households making under $400,000 a year.”
New York Times: “The campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, when combined with their super PACs, have raised $1.3 billion, and that’s not counting money raised by dark-money organizations that are active in the presidential race and don’t disclose their donors.”
“The final two months of the election typically see donors write some of the biggest checks of the campaign season. So we’re just getting started.”
“Donald Trump’s campaign, under pressure from Vice President Harris’ rise in the polls, is facing a persistent challenge from within: Trump himself, and his tendency to undermine his own strategy,” Axios reports.
“The ‘Trump will be Trump’ dynamic has been evident throughout 2024. But as the campaign heads into a nine-week sprint to Nov. 5, his off-script whims appear to be increasingly throwing mud on his advisers’ game plans.”
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.
