The new law that “narrowed the ability to disrupt the counting of Electoral College votes” does not take effect until the new Congress has elected a speaker in Janaury, The Bulwark reports.
So what happens if Republicans win the majority in the House but can’t elect a speaker?
“With just four weeks until the election, Donald Trump and Republican candidates nationwide are putting transgender issues at the center of their campaigns, tapping into fears about transgender women and girls in sports and about taxpayer-funded gender transitions in prisons,” the New York Times reports.
“Since the beginning of August, Republicans have poured more than $65 million into television ads in more than a dozen states on these topics in some of the country’s most competitive races.”
“They are a sign that Republican strategists believe they have found a potent third leg for their messaging stool in 2024, along with the mainstays of inflation and immigration.”
Semafor: Anti-trans ads didn’t work in 2022. Republicans think this time will be different.
“An attack ad from Kamala Harris’s campaign uses denunciations of Donald Trump by his own former top security lieutenants to portray him as too risky to restore to power,” the New York Times reports.
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Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) “demanded more FEMA funding for Florida, just weeks after she voted against a bill that provided $20 billion for federal emergency funds,” the New Republic reports.
“Luna was among 82 House Republicans who voted against the deal and one of 11 Florida lawmakers who cast dissenting votes.”
“The surprisingly positive jobs report Friday has reinforced growing optimism about the U.S. economy, less than a month before the end of an extremely close presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, and while voters say the economy is a top priority,” CNBC reports.
“Trump has been trying to paint a nightmarish picture of the U.S. economy to attack the Biden-Harris administration’s record.”
“A majority of the Supreme Court appeared sympathetic on Tuesday to the Biden administration’s restrictions on kits that allow people to make untraceable homemade guns,” the New York Times reports.
“The case centered on whether the federal agency responsible for regulating firearms had acted lawfully in enacting a rule to address a surge in ‘ghost guns,’ weapons made from kits available for purchase online and heralded as easy enough to assemble in less than an hour.”
Time: “In the four swing states that make it easy to track political alignment in voter registrations—Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania—Democrats have seen their slice of the overall pie shrink.”
A new AARP poll in Arizona finds Donald Trump leading Kamala Harris among voters overall, 49% to 47%, with 1% supporting other candidates and 3% undecided.
There are 37 election skeptics on the election boards of the five most populous counties in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania – including 20 who have voted in the past to not certify results, Reuters reports.
Wisconsin was the only swing state whose big county election boards appeared free of such skeptics.”
Chief Justice John Roberts “was shaken by the adverse public reaction to his decision affording Trump substantial immunity from criminal prosecution,” CNN reports.
“His protestations that the case concerned the presidency, not Trump, held little currency.”
“Unlike most of the justices, he made no public speeches over the summer. Colleagues and friends who saw him said he looked especially weary, as if carrying greater weight on his shoulders.”
Donald Trump will appear on Ben Shapiro’s show today for the first time later today, RealClearPolitics reports.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said he has yet to make a decision on whether to endorse a candidate in the presidential election next month, Bloomberg reports.
Said Dimon: “I will decide, and I will vote. I reserve the right to do whatever I want. I’m a citizen. I can vote. I can say what I want. I’ve never been endorsing candidates. But I am thinking through what I want to say or do.”
Kamala Harris said that “there is not a thing that comes to mind” when asked whether she would’ve done anything differently than President Biden, Axios reports.
“The window for a final 2024 presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris is closing,” CNN reports.
“CNN has publicly offered to host a debate in Atlanta on October 23. Harris has accepted the invitation and welcomed the chance to debate Trump again, but Trump has rejected her calls.”
“On Tuesday, CNN stepped up the pressure by writing to both campaigns and setting a Thursday deadline for a formal response.”
“One of Elon Musk’s most trusted lieutenants has joined the crew of people working for his pro-Trump super PAC, the latest sign of how Mr. Musk is investing his personal brand, energy and network into the group in the final weeks of the presidential campaign,” the New York Times reports.
“The Federal Emergency Management Agency warned Tuesday that falsehoods related to hurricanes are significantly impeding their response efforts, and putting hundreds of thousands of lives at risk as Hurricane Milton barrels toward Florida and others pick up the pieces from Hurricane Helene,” Axios reports.
“Israeli leaders still have not briefed the United States on specific details of their military response to last week’s ballistic missile attack by Iran, even after American military officials have discussed possibly supporting Israeli retaliation with intelligence or airstrikes of their own,” NBC News reports.
Kamala Harris went after Donald Trump for his false claims about FEMA in the wake of devastating storms in the Southeast, ABC News reports.
Said Harris: “It’s profound and it is the height of irresponsibility and, frankly, callousness. Lives are literally at stake right now.”
She added: “People are losing their home with no hope of ever being able to reconstruct or return, and the idea that somebody would be playing political games for the sake of himself — but this is so consistent about Donald Trump. He puts himself before the needs of others. I fear that he really lacks empathy on a very basic level to care about suffering of other people and understand the role of a leader is not to beat people down, it’s to lift people up.”
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.
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