Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 194
What Just Happened?
“Donald Trump’s campaign is dismissing questions about the white supremacist David Duke, after the former Ku Klux Klan leader said on his radio program that the Republican presidential nominee left open the possibility of supporting his Senate campaign,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Duke said on Monday that Mr. Trump did ‘as much as he could’ in a weekend interview to suggest that he could back Mr. Duke, the white nationalist, who is seeking a Louisiana Senate seat.”
Stuart Stevens, chief strategist for Mitt Romney in 2012, tells the Washington Post that Donald Trump isn’t building a winning coalition.
Said Stevens: “Hillary will have Bernie Sanders, the Obamas, Elizabeth Warren, who has been elevated to star status by Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. Who will be campaigning with Donald Trump that has a large constituency?”
He added: “The essence of politics is about addition, not subtraction. Donald Trump finds it very hard for any given moment not to be about Donald Trump, which makes coalition building and the blocking and tackling of politics more difficult. If you’re in a fight with the Republican governor of Ohio and the Hispanic governor of New Mexico, how can you expect to build a broader coalition?”
Playbook: “Donald Trump’s campaign emailed Politico asking to order ‘Politico Magazine with Mr. Trump on the cover. Appreciate the help!’ Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign has blacklisted Politico and refuses to allow us entry into any campaign events.”
Erick Erickson: “I have said repeatedly, over and over, ad nauseum that I do not believe Donald Trump will win the Presidency. Yes, it has always been possible, but it has been very, very improbable that this would happen. I have also said repeatedly that events can change things. And events are now changing things rapidly.”
“Those rapidly changing events are a staggering intervention into the political process by aggressive Trump supporters I never anticipated and only in the last few months realize they were there. They have mobilized, are unwavering in their support, and will say and do anything to get Trump elected.”
“Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager is alleging that Russian hackers are leaking Democratic National Committee emails critical of Bernie Sanders in an effort to help Donald Trump win the election in November,” CNN reports.
Said Robby Mook: “I don’t think it’s coincidental that these emails were released on the eve of our convention here, and I think that’s disturbing.”
A must-read from Josh Marshall: Trump and Putin: Yes, It’s Really a Thing.
Donald Trump declined to say whether or not ousted Fox News chief Roger Ailes is helping his presidential campaign, Politico reports.
Said Trump: “Well, I don’t want to comment. But he’s been a friend of mine for a long time.”
But he added “a lot of people are thinking he’s going to run my campaign.”
Gov. John Kasich said that a “divider” like Donald Trump will have a hard time winning Ohio, an important battleground that could help decide the election in November, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Said Kasich: “Ohio’s a snapshot of the country. People in Ohio want to see a positive agenda, a positive way to move forward.”
However, Kasich said he would not actively campaign against Trump: “I don’t want to do that; that’s not my interest. And we’ll see what happens in the future. But right now, there’s just too many differences.”
USA Today: “Trump’s speech clocked in at about an hour and 15 minutes, by various counts, making it the longest of any acceptance speeches in the last four decades.”
“Trump’s speech was as long as Mitt Romney’s and Barack Obama’s speeches combined in 2012.”
Dan Balz: “There were no echoes of Ronald Reagan’s ‘Morning in America,’ George H.W. Bush’s ‘kinder and gentler nation’ or even George W. Bush’s compassionate conservatism in Donald Trump’s speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination here Thursday night. Instead, in both theme and target audience, Trump offered a powerful echo of Richard Nixon almost 50 years ago.”
“Trump’s speech proved once again that he would continue to throw out the traditional campaign rulebook that might dictate softer language and broader appeals. Instead, he offered his grim portrait of the country and a law-and-order message in the hope of summoning an army of disaffected and forgotten voters large enough to topple the political status quo in November.”
James Poniewozik: “What the speech lacked in unpredictability, it made up for in volume and direness. Mr. Trump near-shouted much of what he had to say, and what he had to say was frightening.”
“He sounded like some two-bit dictator of some country you couldn’t find on a map.”
— Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), quoted by The Week, on Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention.
BuzzFeed: “Despite months of public tension between the Trump and Kasich camps, the governor’s loyalists in Ohio had been making plans for the state party to unify and coordinate with the Trump campaign, according to two sources with knowledge of the effort. One of the governor’s key strategists had been tapped to coordinate get-out-the-vote efforts with Trump, and other Kasich allies were expected to follow suit.”
“But on Monday, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort took the unexpected, and unprecedented, step of blasting Kasich to reporters in his own home state, calling him ‘petulant’ and ’embarrassing’ for his refusal to endorse Trump. Since then, ‘all the top political talent in the state has been called to the sidelines,’ said one Republican close to Kasich.”
Just published: The Science of Trump: Explaining the Rise of an Unlikely Candidate by John Sides and Henry Farrell.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) “defended distancing himself from Donald Trump, refusing to say he’s voting for Trump and ripping the Republican National Convention’s response to his speech the night before,” The Hill reports.
Said Cruz: “I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father… Neither he nor his campaign has taken back a word of what they said about my family.”
He added: “In that speech last night, I did not say a single negative word about Donald Trump. And I’ll tell you, this morning and going forward I don’t intend to say negative things about Donald Trump.”
Politico: 5 takeaways from Cruz’s convention stunner
Byron York: “By allowing Ted Cruz to speak without an assured endorsement, Donald Trump took a gamble with his convention. By refusing to endorse the nominee of his party, Cruz took a gamble with his political future.”
“Trump lost his gamble when Cruz’s speech ended with boos and bad feelings as the audience realized Cruz would do no more than urge them to ‘vote your conscience‘ and would not endorse the candidate who soundly defeated him for the Republican nomination.”
“Cruz’s gamble is longer term. No one will know whether he won or lost until a few years from now.”
Politico: “The act of defiance promises to be a defining moment in Cruz’s political career. He antagonized millions of voters who made Trump the nominee — whether the New Yorker wins or loses, the political cost of that move could be very steep indeed.”
Tony Schwartz, the ghost writer of Donald Trump’s book The Art of the Deal, told NBC News that he received a “cease and desist” letter after speaking out against Trump:
Said Schwartz: “Yes, it is true. I got almost immediately that cease and desist letter delivered to me by FedEx. And, you know, it’s nuts and completely indicative of who he is. There is no basis in anything legal.”
He added: “This notion that I didn’t write the book is so preposterous. You know, I am not — I am not certain that Donald Trump read every word, but I’m sure certain that I wrote every word. And he made a few red marks on the manuscript and sent it back to me, and the rest was history. The idea that he would dispute that is part of why I felt I had to come forward. The notion that if he could lie about that he could lie about anything.”
FiveThirtyEight: “Fact-checking Trump didn’t change his supporters minds about him in Swire’s study. After presenting participants with the various statements, the researchers debriefed the volunteers on which of these statements were true and which were false. Even when Trump supporters accepted that some of Trump’s statements were untrue (recognizing that a vaccine doesn’t cause autism, for instance) they did not change their voting preference. In other words, Trump supporters were willing to acknowledge that some of Trump’s statements were lies, but this didn’t alter their enthusiasm for him.”
“People whose support for Trump arises from animosity toward Clinton or discontent with the status quo are unlikely to be swayed by facts or revelations about Trump’s truthfulness or policy, and the same goes for Clinton supporters who loathe Trump.”
New York Times: “They didn’t want him. They fought against him. Privately, they still resent him. But in the early minutes of the evening, as the party’s senior leadership executed a final quashing of lingering anti-Trump efforts on the convention floor, they presided over Mr. Trump’s installation as the duly chosen Republican Party presidential nominee. They did it because the rules obligated them to, but also because it was politically necessary. If Trump loses the White House, it is imperative to the party’s establishment that he do so convincingly, undeniably, without sabotage, so that they cannot be blamed for the defeat.”
“With the help of Donald Trump, the New Jersey Republican State Committee has paid its legal fees connected to the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal,” the Newark Star Ledger reports.
“Campaign finance reports released Tuesday show the Republican State Committee not only paid its Bridgegate-related bills, but has enough money in the bank to cover its remaining debts. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, had a lot to do with that, hosting a $25,000-a-ticket event in May to raise money for the state GOP.”
“Trump held a separate fundraiser for Gov. Chris Christie’s presidential campaign that same day, bringing in $142,000. That was enough to whittle down Christie’s campaign debt but did not pay it off.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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