Debate Is Still On... Maybe?

There was yet another debate-related dustup yesterday. Bear with us, because this one had so many strange twists and turns, it was like a telenovela.

The proximate cause of the latest dispute is microphones—specifically, whether or not they will be "hot" at all times. In the first twist of the day, the "sides" of the argument are likely not what you think. Advocating for the hot-at-all-times position is... the Harris campaign. Advocating for the only-on-when-the-candidate-is-speaking is... the Trump campaign.

The thinking here is plain. Given what happened with Joe Biden, the Democrats realize that they did Trump a huge favor by imposing discipline on him. On top of that, Kamala Harris' very best moment of her debate with VP Mike Pence, back in 2020, was when Pence tried to talk over her and she pursed her lips and said: "Excuse me, Mr. Vice President. I'm speaking here." The dynamics of one man behaving disrespectfully toward another man are, perhaps, not so bad. The dynamics of an old white guy behaving disrespectfully toward a younger woman of color could be very bad, indeed. Both sides realize this.

Once this point of disagreement emerged, the Trump campaign accused the Harris campaign of re-negotiating on the fly. This is true, although it should be noted that the shut-the-microphones-off thing was negotiated by the Biden campaign, not the Harris campaign. Meanwhile, the Harris campaign accused the Trump campaign of trying to protect Trump from his worst impulses, because he cannot control himself on his own. This is also true.

There were reports during the day yesterday that not only was the Trump campaign demanding the microphones be shut off when not in use, but that they were keeping this demand a secret from... Trump. Their concern, which is not unreasonable, was that he would flip his lid, or that he would be goaded into agreeing to Harris' demands, or both. It's hard to know if this is true, since the story developed so quickly. If it is true, it's another telenovela-style twist.

In any case, eventually Trump did become aware of the ongoing discussion, and he waded in (as his handlers apparently feared he would do), and answered a reporter's question about the microphones: "I don't know—doesn't matter to me. I'd rather have it probably on." The Harris campaign jumped on that, and promptly declared that an agreement had been reached, and that the microphones would be on, unless Trump "allows his handlers to overrule him." Do you think that Team Harris is pretty good at playing Trump like a fiddle?

In comments later in the day, Trump somewhat implied that he's still considering whether he wants to attend the debate, and opined that Harris needs the event more than he does. We think that is incorrect; if they debate, they debate, while if they don't debate, it will look like Trump was afraid and pushed the eject button. It's a couple of weeks until we find out for sure. (Z)

The Donald Trump Show Will Hit the Road

It would appear that we have an answer as to why Donald Trump vanished from the campaign trail. According to insiders, who spoke off the record of course, the former president was deeply depressed by Joe Biden's withdrawal from the race, and from the resulting re-set of a campaign that Trump thought he had already won. "It feels like he's lost his mojo," said one person in Trump's orbit. Of course, this is not incompatible with the thesis that he was badly affected by the assassination attempt.

The problem for Team Trump is that the "bunker campaign" model does not appear to be working, as Trump continues to slip in the polls. And so, the campaign is going to send him out on the road again, for daily or twice-daily campaign events. "Think Trump on steroids," said one insider. It is understandable that the campaign would choose this course. Again, the polling is headed in the wrong direction. And, in 2016, the Trump roadshow got the base worked into a frenzy, while also earning Trump lots and lots of free media coverage.

On the other hand, 2024 is not 2016. Trump gets far less free coverage than he once did, because much of what he does and says is old hat. As to the base, even many of them have grown weary of the same old shtick. They might still vote for him, but he's not packing them in at the rallies anymore. And there aren't too many new converts to be won over to the Trump banner. Meanwhile, maybe because he's older and has lost focus, or maybe because he's more desperate, he's become much more likely to say things that damage him. We'll run through three recent examples that we basically weren't able to get to previously because of the convention.

First up, it's no secret that Trump is fixated on looks, at least when it comes to women. Heck, he used to own the Miss Universe Pageant, which we never watched, but we assume involved Leia Organa representing Alderaan, Saavik representing Vulcan, and Delenn representing Minbar. Last week, speaking of his new opponent, he declared: "I am much better looking than her. I'm a better looking person than Kamala." Our thoughts: (1) it should be "than she (is)" not "than her," (2) Says who? and (3) the presidential election is not a universal beauty pageant.

And Trump didn't stop there. Time magazine recently had a cover with an image of Harris. Here it is:

Trump didn't like it, so he said: "Time magazine doesn't have a picture of her. They have this unbelievable artist drawing her. They took a lot of pictures that didn't work out so they hired a sketch artist." We don't know for sure, but it is our guess that those much-desired suburban women are not going to be impressed with Trump's lack of interest in the issues and his great interest in announcing that he is better looking than Harris is.

And now our second example. The stolen valor stuff not only failed to damage Tim Walz, it also caused many veterans to become angry with the Trump ticket. The lesson the former president took from that was apparently to... find a different way to insult veterans. He was at an event, ostensibly to talk about antisemitism, and he decided to do a little backdoor bragging, talking about how he gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to GOP mega-donor Miriam Adelson. And in his view, Trump added, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom is actually "better" than receiving the Medal of Honor—i.e., the United States' highest award for military valor.

He was actually making a point here, one that is characteristically self-centered, and one that he presumably thinks is profound. It was not his intent to judge the relative merits of the two awards, but instead to comment on what it takes to receive each of the awards. And we agree, it's much more enjoyable to, say, inherit billions from your husband and then give some small chunk of that to Trump than it is to go through what Medal of Honor recipients have to go through. Nonetheless, it looked like Trump was once again denigrating America's military heroes. And even once it was made clear how his words were being taken, he kept doubling down on his valuable "point." The only thing that kept Trump's campaign staff from committing hara kiri over this was that Fox did not give a single moment of coverage to the whole story.

And now, the third (and most recent) example. Over the weekend, Trump got on his soon-to-drop-below-$20-a-share boutique social media platform and shared a truth from a user who has adopted the name "Machiavelli." The item that Trump shared was a relatively standard right-wing meme, a picture of a flag asserting that the choice is between Trump and communism. The problem here is that Machiavelli's posts are not always so tame. He's also written "Adolf Hitler was right" (curiously, while also being a Holocaust denier). He also added: "Jews have been capitalizing on ni**ers for thousands of years" (our censorship, not his). Machiavelli is a conspiracy theorist, of course, and he also believes that any white person who is not a white nationalist must therefore be a "fa**ot" (again, our censorship, not his).

It is true that Trump cannot pore through every tweet or Truth sent by every person he re-tweets or re-truths. However, the guy's name is Machiavelli, for goodness' sake. And the offensive content is frequent and ubiquitous, one need only do a quick perusal of his account to get a sense of his worldview. It just speaks to a characteristic lack of care and judgment on the part of Trump.

It was pretty evident that Trump's team was trying to keep him under wraps. Well before the assassination attempt/Biden withdrawal, Trump often went days without being seen or heard from. Those moments visible to the public suggest something is wrong with Trump, even more so than in past campaigns. And the campaign's handling of their candidate with kid gloves suggests that the public perception is not wrong. But now they've got little choice but to let the bull loose. They're just going to hold their breath and hope he doesn't do too much damage in the china shop. (V & Z)

Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows, Part 436: Georgia Elections

It is bad enough to allow politicians to pick the people who administer elections. Even worse is to allow political parties to make those decisions. And yet, that's the approach that Georgia uses. The Georgia State Election Board is made up of five people, three of whom are new appointees chosen by the Georgia legislature in consultation with the Georgia Republican Party. And you'll just be stunned to learn what happened—the three new appointees have emerged as a Trumpy bloc, and are working to make the election more Trump-friendly.

To be more specific, the legislature made several changes to the Board, removing Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and two other members. The vacancies this created were filled with three MAGA Republicans, folks who are so MAGA that they were mentioned by name by Donald Trump at a rally in Georgia. And the MAGA trio has pushed through several last-minute changes to election rules, most importantly allowing election officials to conduct a "reasonable inquiry" into election results before certifying them and also permitting county election boards to investigate ballot counts. The obvious purpose here is to create delays and uncertainty, in the event that Trump loses the state (again).

Yesterday, several Democratic groups, with the backing of the Harris-Walz campaign, filed suit in Georgia state court. What the blue team is asking for is a ruling that election officials cannot initiate investigations of their own volition, and that they must get a court order, or else must certify the results in a timely manner. If this can't be resolved at the state level, then the Democrats will head to federal court next.

Meanwhile, and here's the "strange bedfellows" part, Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) is also looking into the matter. His first election as governor came in an election that featured some screwiness, screwiness that was largely ignored by the then-Georgia Secretary of State, who was... Brian Kemp. Since then, however, he's become much more committed to election integrity. And while he did not join in the lawsuit the Democrats filed yesterday, he did ask Georgia AG Christopher M. Carr (R) to look into the question of whether Kemp has the power to remove the three MAGA election board members.

We'd say this story is double good news. First, Georgia is the swing state where shenanigans are most plausible, given that it has a Republican trifecta. And yet, shenanigans are running into headwinds, even there. Second, more broadly, the guardrails of democracy are trying mightily to hold. Hopefully they do. (Z)

Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows, Part 437: The Impeachment of Joe Biden

Here's another story that involves some very unusual coalitions. Not overt coalitions, mind you, but coalitions nonetheless.

Readers will recall that, on Monday of last week, the House Republican Conference released its ridiculous report arguing that Joe Biden has committed multiple impeachable offenses, and should be removed from office immediately. The report landed with a thud, and stole approximately 0.0% of the Democrats' thunder. House Republican leadership, from Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on down, were happy to let that particular sleeping dog lie. The last thing the Conference needs, as several dozen swing-state Republicans try to hold on for dear life, is to take a controversial vote that has no chance of actually going anywhere.

The problem here is that the nutty Republicans have very different incentives. Their voters love, love, love kabuki theater. More importantly, the nutters don't really care about the Republicans keeping their majority. In fact, you could argue that the Freedom Caucus prefers to be in the minority, since that frees them up to engage in bomb-throwing 100% of the time, rather than having to spend at least some small part of their time pretending to govern.

You can see where this is headed. It is expected that one of the nutters—most likely Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) or Andy Biggs (R-AZ)—will file a privileged motion calling for Biden to be impeached. That will force Republican members to vote on the motion, either siding with Biden (angering right-wing voters) or siding with the whackadoodle Republicans (angering centrists and independents).

The Democrats aren't saying a word—after all, as the saying goes, if your opponents are shooting themselves in the foot, don't get in their way. However, they are silently root, root, rooting for the Krazypants Kooks Koalition. The blue team would love nothing more than a reminder, just a couple of months from the election, that anyone who votes to keep the Republicans in control of the House is voting for a Conference that is in the thrall of a faction that has absolutely no interest in governing or otherwise doing the work of the people. (Z)

McMaster Takes Potshots at Trump

Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (ret.) served as Donald Trump's National Security Advisor for a little over a year, from February 2017 to April 2018. Last week, McMaster published a new book, At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House.

As you can imagine, the former president does not get a glowing review from his former NSA. McMaster describes Oval Office meetings as "exercises in competitive sycophancy." He says that the administration was full of people interested primarily in advancing their own agendas—Steve Bannon is a particular target of the General's disdain. He also writes that Trump was full of ideas, and that the ideas were almost always really dumb. For example, he wanted to cure the nation's fentanyl crisis by "bomb[ing] the drugs [in Mexico]." On another occasion, Trump proposed waiting until the North Korean army held one of its frequent military parades, and then attacking them with fighter jets and wiping the whole army out. Strategery at its finest.

This week, McMaster sat down for a gaggle of interviews. And during those interviews, McMaster has said a few headline-worthy things. For example, he shared his view that Trump deserves much of the blame for the disaster in Afghanistan. He has noted, several times, that Trump is a Putin flunky. The General also said he won't be back for another go-round: "If President Trump was re-elected, of course I wish him [the] best and I want him to succeed. If our next president is Kamala Harris, I wish her the best, wish her to succeed. But I think my opportunity to serve in the Trump administration is used up."

This leads to an obvious question about McMaster. And that question is: What the hell is wrong with him? If he really and truly believes what he wrote, and what he's saying, then what is with the "Switzerland" approach to the election? What is with the wishy-washy, mealymouthed crap about "I wish them the best," whoever wins in November? Why isn't he saying, clearly and without reservation, that even if Americans don't like Harris on policy, they should be voting for her for the good of the country?

We don't like crapping on a three-star general. And we recognize that military members are supposed to be non-partisan. However, McMaster isn't actually military anymore; he's retired military. And the "keep your opinion to yourself" stuff came to an end the moment that the first copy of the new book hit the first bookshelf. He can slam Trump, but he can't make an endorsement in the election? That makes it look an awful lot like he is willing to observe the "above politics" tradition... until he needs to move product, and sell some books.

For that matter, what about James Mattis? Or Mike Pence? Like McMaster, they have certainly implied that Trump should not be returned to the White House. But many Americans don't do subtlety. If they are really the patriots they claim to be, and Trump is really the danger they say he is, they should be speaking at the DNC, telling people they just can't vote for the Donald. They should be appearing together in a commercial, explaining that while they might be Republicans, they'll all be checking the box for Kamala Harris.

We're not the only ones who have noticed this. The folks at The Bulwark have pointed it out, too. And it is not like McMaster, Mattis, Pence, etc. would be on an island. Just yesterday, over 200 former George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney staffers released a letter in which they endorse Harris. But as long as the formerly prominent members of the Trump administration try to have it both ways, and refuse to come right out and say that people should not be voting to return #45 to the White House, then all we can think of is John F. Kennedy's old paraphrase of The Inferno: "The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis." (Z)

The Latest Walz Smear Is for the Dogs

Donald Trump and his supporters are desperately trying to come up with a smear that they can use against Tim Walz, and actually have it stick. Stolen valor didn't work, the Chinese sleeper agent thing isn't working, and slurs on Walz' son definitely didn't work. The latest line of attack may be the most bizarre of all, which is really saying something.

Here it is, in a nutshell:

Yes, apparently Walz' dog is fake news. Or a false flag. Or something like that. In any event, other right-wingers quickly piled on. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) tweeted: "Why would Tim Walz do this? It's Creepy™️ and Weird™." Donald Trump Jr. paramour Kimberly Guilfoyle added: "Wait so Walz is even lying about his dog?" Far-right activist Charlie Kirk agreed: "Tim Walz is an all-time legendary liar."

Let us now let you in on a little secret here, with an assist from staff dachshund Otto, who is a veteran visitor of dog parks:

You see what they have at dog parks? That's right—dogs (in the case of Otto, the other dog is named Brody). Sometimes, a dog at the dog park interacts with other dogs. Sometimes, an owner at the dog park interacts with other dogs. That is the natural conclusion when you see a picture of a dog owner at a dog park with a dog other than their own. Alternatively, you could think about it, and decide that if someone was going to try to pull off a scam like this, they wouldn't try to do it with dogs of completely different colors. Or, you could even do a little more poking around. In the case of Walz, 20 seconds of investigation would lead you to this video, which shows Walz wearing the outfit seen in the photos, and interacting with both his dog (the black lab) and with the other dog.

The Trump campaign seems to have an animal problem. Before this attempt (doggate?) there were the childless cat ladies (catgate?). What gives?

It's really wild how... well, wild Walz is driving many Republicans. We can't remember a VP who attracted so many desperate attempts, in very short order, to tear him or her down. The selection of Tim Kaine was met with a yawn. Also the selection of Joe Biden, before him. The selection of Kamala Harris engendered some DEI-related commentary, and that was pretty much it. The selection of Mike Pence led to stories about his career, and some of his more "out there" ideas, but none of this crazy conspiracy stuff. We're not sure exactly why Walz is sticking in so many Republicans' craws, but if one of the goals in choosing a running mate is to drive the opposition nuts, Kamala Harris hit a home run. (Z)

Today's Presidential Polls

We seriously doubt the margin in California will only be 20 points. It was 29 in 2020 and 30 in 2016. (Z)

State	Kamala Harris	Donald Trump	Start	End	Pollster
California	57%	37%	Aug 15	Aug 15	Capitol Weekly

Click on a state name for a graph of its polling history.

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