Aug.16

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Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Dueling Banjos: Trump and Harris Each Hold Public Events

Yesterday was the rare day, since Kamala Harris became the Democrats' presumptive nominee, that she and Donald Trump both held major events. That is almost entirely because Trump isn't making many public appearances these days.

We'll start with Trump's event, which was a 90-minute (or so) press conference held at his golf club in Bedminster, NJ. If you wish to watch, you can do so here. As with his appearance in North Carolina on Wednesday, he was supposed to talk about the economy (yesterday, he was even flanked by tables with a bunch of grocery store foods, like bacon and cereal). As with his appearance in North Carolina on Wednesday, Trump showed he can only stay on topic for 15-20 minutes before he feels the need to start freestyling, and issuing forth with a stream-of-consciousness litany of personal attacks and grievances, only sometimes making sense. As with his appearance in North Carolina on Wednesday, Trump lied and lied and lied. Lies at Trump rallies/press conferences are like the f-word in Tarantino films—it's rare that 2 minutes passes without at least one of them.

The most interesting and important thing about the Trump presser, in our view, was this:

I am very angry at her that she's weaponized the justice system against me and other people—very angry at her. I think I'm entitled to personal attacks. I don't have a lot of respect for her, I don't have a lot of respect for her intelligence and I think she'll be a terrible president... She called J.D. and I "weird"... they want me to be nice. But they're not being nice to me. They want to put me in prison.

If you want to see this portion for yourself, it starts at 55:05 and concludes at 57:20 (there are a lot of digressions mixed in).

From this, we take three lessons:

1. The "weird" attacks are really getting to Trump.
   
   
2. Trump is well aware of advice, from within the campaign and without, that he should cool it on the personal attacks.
   
   
3. However, he has triple motivation to keep going with the personal attacks. First, it's what his gut tells him to do. Second, he feels he is being, in effect, censored and told what he cannot say. Third, he feels that the other side started it, and he is just defending himself.

Going back to the item we wrote a couple of days ago, that third item is something that must have Trump's campaign management scared witless. If he is pursuing an approach to the campaign that is unwise, but is informed by his belief that he's a victim and a martyr, it's going to be nigh-on impossible to get him to change course.

And now, the Harris appearance, which was also her first joint appearance with Joe Biden since "The Troubles" led to a change in the Democratic ticket. You can watch here, if you wish. It's only 30 minutes, and so one-third as long as the Trump presser.

There are four things we found interesting about the event. First, Harris bent over backwards to respect Biden's dignity. She said "I could speak all afternoon about the person who I am standing on this stage with—our extraordinary President Joe Biden" and described him as "one hell of a president." Expect that to continue whenever they appear together.

Second, it takes a big person to give up a chance at reelection to the presidency. It takes an even bigger person to do that, and then to screw on a smile and appear at a campaign event for one's replacement just a couple of weeks later. We can think of many presidents, living and dead, who would not have it in them. Biden deserves a lot of credit for his fortitude.

Third, Biden delivered a brief address that served as a microcosm of the highs and lows of his now-ended campaign. On one hand, he was fiery and forceful, like he was during this year's State of the Union address. On the other hand, he tripped over his tongue several times, undoubtedly bringing up memories of the debate. He will be speaking at the DNC on Monday; we tend to assume the same dynamic will be on display.

Fourth, and finally, Biden and Harris announced that they have completed ongoing negotiations with pharmaceutical companies that will reduce the list prices of 10 of Medicare's costliest drugs by between 38 percent and 79 percent. It's not clear exactly how much this will cut costs, since the list price and the actual price are not always directly related. And the cuts won't kick in until 2026. Still, it's a step forward for a lot of people who struggle to afford their prescriptions. This sort of thing is one benefit, during an election cycle, of being the party that controls the White House.

Yesterday's events were presumably the finale of the First Act, leading into the Second Act that is "DNC to Debates." Trump will retreat into one or another of his golf resorts, and will let commercials and his social media accounts do the talking for the next week or so, while Harris prepares for and then holds her national coming out party. (Z)