Barr Testifies

Attorney General William Barr appeared before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, as scheduled. Over the course of five hours, with many slings and arrows hurled in both directions, Barr managed to make one thing crystal clear: He is 100%, absolutely, no doubt about it, in the bag for Donald Trump.

Among the highlights (lowlights?):

• Answering a question about his intervention in the sentencing of Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, Barr asserted that "The president's friends don't deserve special breaks, but they also don't deserve to be treated more harshly than other people." Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) asked if Barr had intervened in the sentencing of anyone who is not a Trump friend, and the AG admitted he had not.
  
  
• He said that the President's re-election bid sometimes comes up at Cabinet meetings, but that he does not see that as a problem, since it doesn't influence policy. Barr also noted that while he's busy not worrying about Trump's re-election this October, he might just release the report from U.S. Attorney John Durham about the Russia investigation (or the "bogus Russiagate scandal," to use the AG's words).
  
  
• Barr justified his deployment of federal officers to Portland and other cities, declaring that the protesters are "violent rioters and anarchists," are guilty of "an assault on the government of the United States," and are a threat to national security. He did not explain exactly how they threaten national security.
  
  
• He insisted that America's police departments don't have a racism problem, and defended that point by asserting that he's seen studies showing that "police are less likely to shoot at a black suspect, a little more likely to shoot at a white suspect." He could not cite those studies. Further, he is certainly intelligent enough to recognize the inherent dishonesty of that framing, since white Americans outnumber Black ones by a margin of about 4 to 1.
  
  
• The AG said that voting by mail is susceptible to large-scale fraud by foreign actors. He could not explain how that fraud might be perpetrated, or provide any evidence for his assertion.
  
  
• When Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-RI) asked "Is it ever appropriate, sir, for the president to solicit or accept foreign assistance in an election?," Barr responded: "It depends what kind of assistance" before later deciding it's probably not appropriate. There is, of course, no type of foreign assistance that is legal for a presidential candidate to receive.
  
  
• Responding to a question about the lack of sufficient COVID-19 testing, Barr laid the blame at the feet of...Barack Obama, declaring that "the problem of the testing system was a function of President Obama's mishandling of the CDC."

If there is one thing here that is not 100% the Trump party line, we are not seeing what it is. At the same time, Barr presented himself as something of a hero, someone who had no interest in returning to public life, but came out of retirement to "restore a sense of justice" to the Justice Dept., and who thinks he's done a fine and dandy job of doing that. He also argued that he could not possibly be corrupt because he's never used the powers of the department against political foes. "What enemies have I indicted?" he asked. A failure to commit one specific abuse of power (as far as we know) is pretty thin evidence to hang your hat on while presenting yourself as a modern-day Solon.

So, what did the Democrats achieve on Tuesday? Not much. They collected plenty of rock-solid evidence about the kind of AG Barr is, but everyone who is willing to consider that evidence already knew he was a Trump henchman. And what did Barr achieve? Well, he was presumably performing for an audience of one, and that one was undoubtedly delighted by what he heard. As an added bonus, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson now have a week's worth of material for their shows. (Z)

Trump Jr. Disciplined by Twitter

It's not easy to find a doctor willing to endorse hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19, or to declare that mask wearing does nothing to prevent the disease, or to warn you that the leaders of the world are secretly lizard people who are just wearing human suits. But they are out there, and a group called "America's Frontline Doctors" managed to round up about a dozen of them for a press conference in front of the Supreme Court last week.

If you really want to see it, you'll have to Google it. We don't want to embed something so profoundly irresponsible and besides, it keeps getting removed from YouTube and other platforms, meaning that links go dead very quickly. If you really want to evaluate it, you're better off skipping the video and reading these brief biographies of the participants that Gizmodo put together. The "lizard people" doctor is Stella Immanuel, who also believes that endometriosis is caused by sexual intercourse with demons during the course of dreams, that most medical treatments are designed to implant humans with alien DNA, and that the government is at work on a vaccine that will cause people to give up religion. The other doctors' bios aren't much better.

These physicians, particularly Immanuel, have become darlings of the right since their dog and pony show, with the result that the video was retweeted by the Donald Trumps, Sr. and Jr. These days, Twitter has a policy forbidding COVID-19 disinformation, so they suspended Junior's account until he deleted the tweet (Arizona GOP chairwoman Kelli Ward got the same treatment). The tweet has also been removed from Trump Sr.'s account, though he was not suspended.

We generally skip stories about bad behavior on Twitter these days, because everyone knows about the Trumps' use and abuse of social media, and talking about the bad behavior just gives it oxygen. That said, this particular story brings up three useful points worth noting. In order, from most to least important:

1. Trump Gotta Trump: When Trump Sr. appeared to be changing course on COVID-19 last week, we were extremely skeptical, with good reason. And, like clockwork, he's already reverting to pre-pivot form. In addition to foregoing both masks and advice from Anthony Fauci, he's also back to spreading misinformation like this absurd video with these quack physicians. On Tuesday, he reiterated his faith in hydroxychloroquine as a treatment while also declaring that large portions of the country are now "corona-free."
   
   
2. Martyr Complex: There was zero question that this video was a violation of Twitter policy—it's not even a close call. And since it's their platform, they get to set the rules. That did not stop the Trumps from tweeting it, nor Trump Jr. from engaging in the usual gnashing of teeth and rending of garments when he got popped, moaning about free speech and the persecution of conservatives. It is quite clear, at this point, that the Trumps want to be sanctioned. Whining and complaining about that affords them more attention and stokes more anger among the base than anything else they might do on social media these days, inasmuch as "The Apprentice: Presidential Edition" has grown rather stale.
   
   
3. Different Rules for the President: It is also quite clear that the President is held to a different standard than anyone else on Twitter. And that standard is that he gets far more leeway than anyone. Again, everyone else who shared this video was suspended. The President, at most, had his wrist slapped.

And now we return you to your regular, non-Twitter-related news. (Z)

Trump Will Accept GOP Nomination in North Carolina

Donald Trump isn't going to get his dream, which is accepting re-nomination as the candidate of the Republican Party in front of 20,000 screaming fans. However, he cannot bear the thought of zero pageantry at all. And so, having canceled plans to relocate to Jacksonville, he announced on Tuesday that he will accept nomination in North Carolina, the state where he was originally supposed to do so. "I'll be in North Carolina, and that's a very big deal because we have a lot of the delegates there and that'll be a nomination process," he said during an interview with local station WRAL.

Presumably, someone in the White House or the RNC is aware of these plans (though maybe not; see below). Trump did not specify what venue, or even what city, he might use for this purpose. His allusion to the delegates suggests that it will be somewhere in Charlotte, except that the same issues that derailed the RNC in the first place are still in effect. Further, returning to Charlotte would be the ultimate "coming back with your tail between your legs" move, which may be intolerable to the President. For what it's worth, the largest city in North Carolina with a Republican mayor is Greenville. It's about three or four hours' drive from Charlotte (where the delegates will be), and has medium-sized indoor and outdoor arenas. (Z)

There's No Joy in Mudville

This is our second day in a row with a baseball story. You wouldn't think it, given our political focus, but it happens. This one is quite strange, even by Trump administration standards, and begins with Dr. Anthony Fauci's acceptance of the Washington Nationals' invitation to throw out the first pitch of the season. It wasn't a great pitch, as you can see here:

Still probably good enough to make the staff of the Pittsburgh Pirates, though. In any event, Fauci is the type of fellow who is able to laugh at himself, and so most viewers were charmed by the whole thing. In fact, Topps already has a Fauci baseball card for sale, and it's setting sales records.

Did Fauci accept the invitation because he's a die-hard Nationals fan who's always wanted to throw out a first pitch? Or did he accept as a means of subtly trolling Donald Trump? Or maybe both? Only he knows, but the President certainly took it as a personal attack. And so, the White House actually counter-programmed Fauci's first pitch, inviting former Yankee (and outspoken Trump supporter) Mariano Rivera to that day's COVID-19 briefing (which meant you had a doctor on the pitcher's mound, and a pitcher helping to dispense health information). The administration also allowed some Little Leaguers to play on the White House lawn, and Trump announced that he would be throwing out the first pitch at the New York Yankees game on Aug. 15.

This declaration was clearly made in a fit of pique; it is fair to say that Trump, as is his wont, did not think it through. If the President screwed up his first pitch, he would not be able to roll with it nearly as well as Fauci did, and certainly would not be honored with a best-selling baseball card. Further, if the game happened to be canceled due to COVID-19, that would also be an embarrassment. "Trump can't throw first pitch due to pandemic he mismanaged" would be the headlines. And finally, in the clearest sign of all that Trump pulled this out of his rear end—and this is where the story gets sorta strange—it turns out that neither the White House nor the Yankees was aware of the plan. Trump thus spontaneously invited himself.

Someone has already put the brakes on the plan. Maybe Trump thought better of it, or maybe the Yankees said "thanks, but no thanks." Whichever it was, the President "canceled" his appearance via a tweet:

Because of my strong focus on the China Virus, including scheduled meetings on Vaccines, our economy and much else, I won’t be able to be in New York to throw out the opening pitch for the @Yankees on August 15th. We will make it later in the season!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2020

At this point, it's a pretty big assumption that there will even be a season beyond Aug. 15. If there is, we suspect Trump will fulfill his promise to "make it later in the season!" right after he releases his tax returns, cashes Mexico's border-wall check, and presents his "terrific" Obamacare replacement plan.

In any event, beyond highlighting Trump's careless impetuousness, this story makes clear that for him, at least, his disdain for Fauci has become intensely personal. The next time that Fauci is not present for a briefing he should be at, or is not consulted on a policy he should have input on, there is no longer any doubt why. (Z)

Today in Photoshop Bigotry

This weekend, the re-election campaign of Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) launched a new Facebook campaign targeted at opponent Jon Ossoff:

It did not take long for people to notice that not only are these two men both Jewish, but that Ossoff's nose appears to have been enlarged, which would be pandering to one of the oldest of Jewish stereotypes.

If the Perdue campaign had denied everything, and said that the complainers were imagining things, it would have been hard to say otherwise. After all, the photo is pretty low resolution, and whoever removed the background did a terribly amateurish job. However, Perdue's staffers conceded the distortion, but tried to excuse it with the thinnest explanation imaginable, claiming that an "outside vendor" accidentally applied a filter that "distorted the image."

Uh huh, right. (Z) has photoshopped thousands of images over the years, and has never once accidentally applied the "make the nose and nothing else in the photo bigger" filter, probably because it doesn't exist. In other words, this excuse does not remotely pass the smell test (no pun intended), which means that the campaign has de facto admitted that they were indeed pandering to anti-Semitic stereotypes. They have already bowed to pressure and removed the ad from circulation, as they deal with the fallout from getting caught red-handed.

Remarkably, this isn't the only story of this sort that broke on Tuesday. The campaign of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was also taken to task, in their case for darkening an image of Democratic opponent Jaime Harrison:

Like the Perdue campaign, the Graham campaign did not deny that the picture was altered. Their excuse was that they do this for their ads featuring Graham, too. That explanation, apparently, makes it better.

The Republican Party has, of course, been using dog whistles like these since Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy in 1968. If it's not "forced busing" (Nixon), it's "welfare queens" (Ronald Reagan), or marauding Black rapists (George H. W. Bush), or LGBTQ folks who have the temerity to want marriage equality (George W. Bush). And so, we can hardly lay the blame entirely at the feet of Donald Trump. That said, Trump seems to have opened it up to virtually every possible target (Muslims, Jews, LGBTQ, Latinos, immigrants, etc.), and to have encouraged a near-total lack of subtlety or shame. Surely there will come a time when this sort of thing is a loser, politically. Is that time 2020? The polls suggest it might just be. (Z)

Biden Says VP Pick Coming in the First Week of August

Joe Biden gave a speech in his hometown of Wilmington yesterday, and submitted to a Q&A session thereafter. The question on everyone's minds—when are you going to choose your running mate?—came up, naturally, and Biden said he would make his announcement during the first week in August.

This is pretty shrewd timing. It will allow Biden 2020 to dominate several days' news cycles, and once that dies down, the DNC (Aug. 17-20) will produce another week's worth of headlines. Plus, 10 days or so will give the running mate time to put together a whiz-bang acceptance speech, even if it is going to be delivered via Zoom. If we assume that by "the first week in August," he means something like Aug. 4, then that means the pick is about seven days away. Looks like we're going to have to go daily (or near-daily) in our VP candidates' series in order get through them all in time. (Z)

VP Candidate Profile: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)

Another VP profile. Here is the list of candidates that we will profile, and the order in which we will profile them:

1. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) [Score: 27.5]
2. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM) [Score: 26]
3. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) [Score: 20]
4. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) [Score: 17]
5. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)
6. Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA)
7. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D-Atlanta)
8. Stacey Abrams
9. Former NSA Susan Rice
10. Gov. Gina Raimondo (D-RI)
11. Rep. Val Demings (D-FL)
12. Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH)

As a reminder, we're awarding up to 10 points across five different areas of concern: How ready the candidate is to assume the presidency, if needed; what kind of coattails the candidate might have in terms of helping the Democratic ticket in their state/region; what the candidate brings to the table in terms of "nuts and bolts" political skills like fundraising and debating; the depth of the candidate's relationship with Biden (to the extent that information is publicly known); and how well the candidate balances out Biden. So, the perfect running mate would score a 50, while Hannibal Hamlin would score a 0.

• Full Name: Elizabeth Ann Warren
  
  
• Age on January 20, 2021: 71
  
  
• Background: Warren's "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" story is pretty well known at this point. Born in Oklahoma to homemaker Pauline Herring and salesman/maintenance man Donald Herring, the lower-lower-middle-class family (the Senator describes it as "the ragged edge of the middle class") fell on hard times when Donald had a heart attack and piled up some serious medical bills. To help defray those expenses, Warren went to work as a waitress at the age of 13. Despite the drain on her time and energy, she was still a star student in high school, and won a scholarship to George Washington University.
  
  Keeping in mind that this was the 1960s, when women were still generally pressured to prioritize the private sphere over the public sphere, Warren left GWU after two years to marry Jim Warren and start a family. They decamped to Houston, where she completed her education, earning a B.S. in speech pathology and audiology from the University of Houston while raising a daughter. After Jim accepted a job in New Jersey, the Warrens moved again, and Elizabeth enrolled in and completed law school at Rutgers (Newark campus) in 1976 while raising her second child, a son.
  
  Following a divorce in 1978, Warren remarried (to legal scholar Bruce H. Mann) and launched her academic career. Starting as a lecturer at Rutgers, she eventually moved on to the University of Houston, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Pennsylvania and, ultimately, Harvard Law. During this time, in addition to earning tenure (in 1981), Warren gained a reputation as a leading expert in bankruptcy law, and published widely in the areas of both law and politics. A practicing Methodist, she also regularly taught Sunday school, making her yet another bona fide Christian that the religious right despises (see Clinton, Hillary; Obama, Barack).
  
  
• Political Experience: Like many people on the VP list, Warren began her political career as an appointee. She played a key role in lobbying for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and once that legislation was signed into law by Barack Obama, he appointed Warren as Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury to help build the CFPB. She would have become its first director, but Senate Republicans made clear they were not going to sign off on that, so the post went to former Ohio AG Richard Cordray instead.
  
  It would seem that foray into the rough and tumble of national politics whetted Warren's appetite for being in the arena, because just months after missing out on the CFPB directorship, she declared her candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat then occupied by Republican Scott Brown. Brown only won the job thanks to the wonky special election electorate that showed up after the death of Ted Kennedy, so whichever candidate emerged from the Democratic primary that year was a strong favorite to unseat Brown in a presidential year. Warren so thoroughly outran the primary field that they all dropped out, and she claimed over 97% of the vote. In the general election, she outpaced Brown by 8 points, 54% to 46%. She has been in the Senate ever since, trouncing Republican Geoff Diehl in her 2018 reelection bid, 60% to 36%.
  
  
• Signature Issue(s): The wealth gap. Warren was a largely apolitical registered Republican until the mid-1990s, until her academic work opened her eyes to disparities built into the American system. She has since been an outspoken advocate of more regulation for banks and corporations and higher taxes on the very rich. Among her published works are four bestselling books on these issues, the best known of which is This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America's Middle Class. With that said, Warren would also be in a position to be the campaign's COVID-19 critic, since she's been outspoken about the administration's response and the Republican stimulus packages, and since she's been personally affected, having lost her brother Don Reed Herring to the disease back in April.
  
  
• Instructive Quote: "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. ...Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along," (Sept. 21, 2011).
  
  
• Recent News: As noted, there aren't too many senators that have been more vocal about COVID-19, and just last week she published her plan for combating the pandemic as a New York Times op-ed. After all, she's got a plan for everything. Warren has also delighted Democrats with her willingness to give Trump nominees the third degree; she was back at it this week, opposing the appointment of unapologetic conspiracist Anthony Tata to a high-ranking job at the Pentagon.
  
  
• Ready for the Big Chair?: She's about as ready as one can be while possessed of zero experience in executive office in the public sector. John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Barack Obama, among others, made it work. (5/10)
  
  
• Coattails: Massachusetts is, of course, a done deal for the Democrats. They could run a ticket of Magic Johnson (Lakers) and Derek Jeter (Yankees), and folks in the Bay State would still cast their votes for it by a big margin. If you squint very carefully, it's possible that Warren could help pull the slightly-in-doubt New Hampshire across the finish line, or maybe that one EV in Maine, but those effects are both debatable and nominal. (1/10)
  
  
• Nuts and Bolts Skills: She's a good public speaker, a very good campaigner, an excellent sausage-maker, and a first-class debater. Most or all of these women would wipe the floor with Mike Pence in the vice-presidential debate, but Warren would absolutely run laps around him. (8/10)
  
  
• Relationship with Biden: Warren never served with Biden in the Senate, but they have developed a pretty close relationship in the last couple of years, one that grew even closer when Biden phoned with condolences following the death of her brother. They reportedly discuss policy on the phone about once a week, and in May they co-authored an op-ed on the COVID-19 pandemic. (8/10)
  
  
• Balance: She doesn't bring youth to the ticket, even if she seems to be 71 going on 50. No ethnic balance, either. Some Democrats believe she'll draw more of the progressive wing into the tent in November, though the sort of progressive that supported her in the primaries tends to be pragmatic, and is already committed to voting for Biden. It could be that her wonkiness is actually her most important asset. Because of his occasional stutter, Biden has something of a reputation (undeserved) for being shaky on policy. Warren would certainly shore up that element of the ticket. Also, if Warren is tapped to be the #2, Donald Trump will undoubtedly deploy the Pocahontas slur on a near-daily basis. Given the political climate following the death of George Floyd, that could rebound on him, serving as a reminder of his less-than-forward thinking on race, and his less-than-stellar record in that area. (5/10)
  
  
• Betting Odds: She's getting from 16/1 to 10/1, which implies a 6-10% chance of being selected.
  
  
• Completely Trivial Fact: Every one of the 12 VP candidates we are profiling has an IMDB page, because IMDB tracks appearances as "Self" on the various news and interview programs. Warren is the only one of the 12, however, who has a credit as an actress. What role did she play? Sen. Elizabeth Warren, on the political drama "Alpha House" (CNN's Jake Tapper also appeared, playing "Jake Tapper" as did Bravo's Andy Cohen, playing "Andy Cohen"). As they say, there is no role harder to play than playing yourself. If you want to read a bit more about the cameo, there's a story here.
  
  
• The Bottom Line: We have her at 27/50, which puts her squarely in frontrunner territory, right there with Kamala Harris. The betting odds have Harris far ahead of Warren, but in reality they are much closer, and their fortunes largely depend on what Team Biden decides is most important in a running mate.

Karen Bass, your turn is next. (Z)

Today's Presidential Polls

The polls are coming fast and furious, and they continue to have little in the way of good news for Donald Trump. There are just too many must-have states that are coin flips (North Carolina, Georgia, Iowa) and too many should-be-in-the-bag states that are getting tight (Alaska, Montana). You can't play defense in that many places, and you can't count on getting that many breaks. (Z)

State	Biden	Trump	Start	End	Pollster
Alaska	44%	50%	Jul 23	Jul 24	PPP
Colorado	54%	41%	Jul 23	Jul 24	PPP
Georgia	46%	45%	Jul 23	Jul 24	PPP
Iowa	47%	48%	Jul 23	Jul 24	PPP
Massachusetts	55%	23%	Jul 17	Jul 20	MassINC
Maine	50%	38%	Jul 18	Jul 24	Colby College
Maine	53%	42%	Jul 23	Jul 24	PPP
Montana	45%	50%	Jul 23	Jul 24	PPP
North Carolina	49%	46%	Jul 23	Jul 24	PPP
New Jersey	51%	33%	Jul 07	Jul 12	DKC Analytics
Washington	62%	28%	Jul 22	Jul 27	SurveyUSA

Today's Senate Polls

It sure looks like Donald Trump has coattails, and not in a good way for the Republican Party. The same states whose EVs are slipping away from Trump are prepping to turn their Senate seat over to the Democrats. If the results shown here all came to pass, then the Democrats could lose Alabama, and they would still recapture the Senate (by virtue of holding Michigan and gaining Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and North Carolina). (Z)

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
Arizona	Mark Kelly	52%	Martha McSally*	36%	Jul 17	Jul 26	Morning Consult
Colorado	John Hickenlooper	48%	Cory Gardner*	42%	Jul 17	Jul 26	Morning Consult
Georgia	Jon Ossoff	42%	David Perdue*	45%	Jul 17	Jul 26	Morning Consult
Maine	Sara Gideon	44%	Susan Collins*	39%	Jul 18	Jul 24	Colby College
Michigan	Gary Peters*	49%	John James	35%	Jul 17	Jul 26	Morning Consult
North Carolina	Cal Cunningham	46%	Thom Tillis*	37%	Jul 17	Jul 26	Morning Consult

* Denotes incumbent

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