Harris Is Not Going to Fall into the Debate Trap That Biden Fell Into

When Joe Biden prepped for his ill-fated debate with Donald Trump in June, he focused on making sure he knew all the facts about all the policy issues, which did him no good whatsoever. Kamala Harris is not making the same mistake in prepping for her debate with Trump next Tuesday. She understands that facts and figures don't move voters and neither do innocent mistakes that are flagged later. Her whole approach will be radically different from Biden's.

Instead, Harris will focus on exploiting Trump's Achilles heel, which is ... Donald Trump. She is planning on goading him and unnerving him in an attempt to get him to say something that offends voters. She will also call out his lies and attempt to get him to say things that will go viral on social media. She knows from her own debate with Mike Pence in 2020 that policy doesn't matter. What mattered then was the fly that landed on Pence's head and upstaged him, not his views on abortion or anything else. Maybe she could bring a jar of live flies onstage and release them just before the debate starts.

She will also attack Trump for all the promises he made in 2016 and then broke—for example, building a wall on the Mexican border and getting Mexico to pay for it. And she will blame him for mismanaging the government's response to COVID.

That said, she is also going to learn as much policy as she can absorb. It is her nature. Starting today, she will hunker down in Pennsylvania, where the actual debate will take place, isolated from the outside world, and do one mock debate after another because she is out of practice. The prep will be run by D.C. lawyer Karen Dunn, who helped Harris prep for the 2020 debate, and Rohini Kosoglu, a longtime policy guru. Many other people will be involved as well.

One weakness Harris has is her penchant for getting into the weeds on policy. Her advisers will have to train that out of her. The debate will not be won or lost on knowing how many murders were committed in Detroit last year. She needs to focus on the big messages: Trump is incompetent and we need to go forward, not backward.

Democratic strategist James Carville wrote an op-ed in The New York Times yesterday giving Harris three pieces of advice:

• Let Trump be Trump: Carville knows that Trump often speaks from his gut and his gut doesn't have a very good political sense. He wants Harris to goad Trump into saying things that will play well with his base but be a horror to swing voters and suburban moms. Her challenge is to say things that really get under his skin and make him explode. Instead of calling him an authoritarian, she could say he is even weirder than Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH). If that leads to a discussion of which one of them is weirder, she gets bonus points. Carville believes that one good joke is worth 100 fact checks. No doubt her team is working around the clock to think up jokes that will infuriate him. If she can work "small" and "Stormy Daniels" into the same joke, he'll blow his top. That's what she needs. When he explodes, all she has to say: "Same old tired playbook. Even an elderly gerbil can learn a few new tricks, but he can't." She needs to make it funny. "Gerbil" is funny. "Dog" is not funny.
  
  
• Break with Biden: One of the things Trump will try to do is tie Harris to Joe Biden's least popular policies, possibly Gaza. Consequently, she needs to break with Biden on a couple of high-profile policies to show that she is not Biden II, but her own woman. This will negate Trump's attacks on Biden since she will be able to then say: "I'm not Joe Biden and I am not running on his platform." One obvious area is abortion. Biden, an observant Catholic, didn't like talking about abortion. Harris can say that guaranteeing every woman's right to an abortion whenever she needs one is her top priority. This is not only a break with Biden, but very popular on its own. She can also tout her tax plan for small businesses. Many small business owners are Republicans but they may like her tax plan very much. She can surely find another issue to emphasize. People can't remember more than three things anyway.
  
  
• Toto, I Have a Feeling We're Not in 2020 Anymore: Trump is going to hit Harris with positions she took during her abortive 2020 presidential run. She needs a clear response. Carville suggests: "I learned from my time governing in the White House. These are my positions [now]." If Trump insists on trying to tie her to her old positions, she can point out to evangelicals that, before he jumped into the presidential race in 2016, he was a strong supporter of abortion. And again, she could do it in a way that will make his head explode, like this: "Back before your presidential run, when you were raping women, you were all for abortion. Now you are suddenly not. Why?" He will naturally then forget everything Susie Wiles has tried to drill into his head and deny it. That's when she can point out "a New York State judge said you raped E. Jean Carroll and a jury ordered you to pay her $88 million as compensation." She could also note that a dozen women have accused him of sexual assault. He really doesn't want to have that discussion on national television, but if she is clever, she can goad him into it.
  

With Carville publishing his plan in the Times, Trump's handlers know it. But can they get him to realize that he shouldn't fall into the traps she is going to set for him? That could decide who wins the debate—and the presidency. (V)

Judge Chutkan Wants to Get Going

The Supreme Court threw a monkey wrench in the works with its decision that a president is king-lite. So now Judge Tanya Chutkan has to decide if the superseding indictment Special Counsel Jack Smith has filed complies with the Supreme Court ruling. In it, Smith has carefully removed all references to activities that Donald Trump engaged in that are part of his job. For example, he is clearly allowed to speak to DoJ officials, so probably he is allowed to order them to break the law. In the superseding indictment, all evidence that might be related to the president's official duties has been excised. Also, Smith empaneled a new grand jury that has not been polluted with witnesses who might not be allowed to testify based on the Supreme Court decision.

The ball is now in the court of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan. She is expected to preside over a hearing today where she is likely to explain how she intends to go forward. She is a no-nonsense judge and will not tolerate frivolous motions whose only purpose is to stall the case. She has also said that she sees Trump as a criminal defendant, not a presidential candidate, and doesn't believe his candidacy should have any bearing on the case. She earlier said that hearings to determine if the case can go to trial do not require Trump's presence in court, so he can't use his campaigning as a reason to delay the hearings. Only his lawyers have to be present in court during the hearings.

In the hearings, if they happen, Smith will argue that Trump's calling on a mob to invade the Capitol was not part of the president's job description, so the Supreme Court's decision simply does not apply to the case. Trump's lawyers think that there are lots of legal reasons not to have a trial, at least not now. In the past, Chutkan has had little tolerance for such arguments. Today we may learn more about how she wants to proceed. (V)

For Republicans to Win, Trump Has to Lose

Politico's politics bureau chief Jonathan Martin has talked to a number of senior Republicans in Congress. On the record, they all support Donald Trump. Off the record, they fervently want Kamala Harris to crush Trump to get him out of the way so they can go back to being the party of Ronald Reagan, and maybe start winning elections consistently again starting in 2026 or 2028. His habit of backing losers because they swear fealty to him doesn't go over big with most of them, but they dare not say it. If he is absolutely crushed, especially if he loses Florida, it will be much easier for the grown-ups to take the party back. Of course, the congressional Republicans are also fervently hoping they win the Senate, so Harris will be completely hamstrung and won't be able to do anything. Then in 2028, they can blame her for not doing anything.

It's a nice thought, but if Harris wins and the Democrats fail to control both chambers of Congress, it would be the first time since 1884 that a Democrat was elected president without pulling in both chambers of Congress as well. It is more wishcasting than anything else. If Harris wins a massive victory, enough to give the congressional Republicans the backbone to tell Trump to go back to Florida and stay there (unless the Bureau of Prisons has other ideas), that means there was a blue wave. In a blue wave, the Democrats are almost certain to capture the House, although the Senate may hang on a single (deep-red) state: Montana.

What the congressional Republicans are thinking is that a massive Trump loss would make it easier to recruit candidates for the House and Senate in 2026 whose primary attribute would be their ability to win, rather than their desire to kiss Trump's [insert body part here]. One GOP senator said to Martin: "Who do you think would have a tougher 2026 reelection, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) under Harris or Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) under Trump?" Republican senators also think that taking back the House would be easier in 2026 under Harris than under Trump. They also think they could score big in the 36 gubernatorial elections in 2026 with Harris as president. Of course, these assumptions assume they can block Harris from actually governing. If the Democrats capture both chambers and either abolish the filibuster or make the Republicans actually filibuster for a couple of weeks on major bills until they physically drop, Harris could do popular things and the Democrats could campaign in 2026 on her achievements.

What Martin found surprising is that for most Republicans who don't belong to the Church of MAGA, the proposition that it is in their interest for Harris to win isn't even the slightest bit controversial. They are willing, even eager, to have a hamstrung Harris be president for 4 years so they can get Trump to meander off to the 19th hole somewhere and stay there. They know he won't go quietly, so his defeat has to be cataclysmic—say losing Florida, Ohio and Texas, so Republican governors there will go on television and say: "We had a fair election and Harris won my state. Period."

Not all Republican strategists think like this. Terry Sullivan said: "You're assuming Republicans have a top of the ticket problem and not a voter base problem. It's not like our leaders have been leading the voters to the wilderness against the voters' judgment." If Sullivan is right, Republican voters will demand a new Trump, not a new Reagan. Maybe Don Jr. Maybe J.D. Vance. Maybe Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO). Who knows? (V)

Michigan Judge: Kennedy Must Remain on the Ballot

Robert Kennedy Jr. now realizes that his presence on the ballot in key swing states will hurt his master, Donald Trump. That wasn't the game plan. He now wants to get off the ballot everywhere, certainly in the swing states. However, the deadlines to get off in Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin have already passed, so Kennedy has entered Hail Mary mode and is suing to get off the ballot because, well, he changed his mind.

On Tuesday, a Michigan judge ruled that no, he cannot be removed from the ballot. State law is clear on the deadline and changing your mind after the deadline has passed doesn't change state law, even if you blame your indecision on your brain worms.

In North Carolina, it is very unlikely that his lawsuit will prevail because not only did he miss the deadline, but the ballots have already been printed and are due to be mailed out on Monday. The state is going to argue that having to print new ballots would not be possible without missing ballot-mailing deadlines embedded in state law. No judge is going to order a state to violate state law like that. There is a tiny chance Kennedy might win in court in Wisconsin, but most likely he will lose that one too.

Kennedy will not appear on the Arizona ballot because he requested to be removed just before the deadline. So that's a "win" for him, at least. But in three key swing states, there his name will be, right along with Jill Stein and Cornel West. And since most of the Kennedy-backing Democratic-leaners appear to have returned home with the advent of Kamala Harris' candidacy, the only major-party candidate he'll likely hurt is The Donald. (V)

AOC Calls Jill Stein "Predatory"

With Robert Kennedy Jr. on the ballot in a number of swing states, some Republican voters may be siphoned off from Donald Trump. What about the other side? In 2016, perennial Green Party candidate Jill Stein got enough votes in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania to cost Hillary Clinton the election. She is on the ballot again this year. Will she do it again? Democrats are worried.

One Democrat is trying to do something to take Stein down a peg or two: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). AOC has tons of credibility with the kinds of voters who might pull the lever for Stein. If she were to diss Stein, that might actually cause some of Stein's voters to refrain from voting for her. So that is exactly what AOC did. She called Stein "predatory" and "not authentic." Watch:

Unlike Kennedy, Stein is trying to get on the ballot everywhere, not off the ballot. She used to be a professor of medicine at Harvard, so she is probably not stupid. She understands that she is running as a spoiler and could tip the election to Donald Trump, whom she despises. So why is she running again and again and again? As a former college teacher, she wants to teach the Democrats a lesson. The lesson: If they don't support everything she wants, she has the power to make them lose. A true educator! They better learn this quickly and do her bidding or she will sink them (again, like in 2016).

This is why it is important that AOC is attacking her. For many of Stein's supporters, AOC is probably their favorite Democrat. If she calls Stein "predatory," it could well cut into Stein's vote and thus her power. This also shows that AOC is a very smart politician. Her move will surely be noticed by the Democratic leadership, just as her speech at the DNC was. She understands that to move up in the Party, you need to be a team player. By dissing Stein, AOC is demonstrating her support for the team when it is needed. It will be noticed and not forgotten.

She is clearly destined to be more than just another backbencher. She just needs some more experience, although if the Democrats capture the House, she could be made the chair of some subcommittee. She is currently on the House Oversight Committee and the House Committee on Natural Resources. If the Democrats regain the majority, she could well become chair of the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. From that post, she could introduce and push legislation to implement the Green New Deal that she favors. After only two terms in the House, she clearly already understands how the game is played. This is something soon-to-be-former Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Cori Bush (D-MO) never got. (V)

DJT Continues to Crater

In three weeks, on Sept. 25 specifically, Donald Trump will be allowed to start selling his 115 million shares of DJT stock, although under certain conditions, he might be allowed to start selling as soon as Sept. 20. Insiders are like rats leaving a sinking ship. They are selling off their stock before it collapses completely. The company's CFO, Philip Juhan, just sold $1.9 million worth. DJT's CEO Devin Nunes, general counsel Scott Glabe, COO Andrew Northwall, and CTO Vladimir Novachki have all sold substantial amounts of DJT stock recently, as well.

The stock closed at $16.98 yesterday, down from a high of $99.03 in Feb. 2022 and $61.96 in March 2024. This is lower than it has been at any time since the merger with the special purpose acquisition company was completed and the stock was listed on the NASDAQ:

At the current price, Trump's stock holding is nominally worth $2 billion (down from $6 billion in May), but there is no way he will ever be able to cash in at that level, unless he wins the election and some rich foreign dictator, say MBS of Saudi Arabia, wants to take the stock off his hands to curry favor with him (even though MBS knows it is actually worthless).

One problem is that trading is very thin, usually under 8 million shares a day. If Trump were to try to sell even 10% of his holdings (11.5 million shares), that would more than double the average daily trading volume and with so many shares for sale and no legitimate buyers, the price would tank instantly. If word got out among Trump's supporters that he was dumping the stock, even they would be smart enough to realize this is not a buying opportunity if Trump does not have faith in his own company, whose only asset is a social media site he posts to. The ones who bought the stock at $30, $40, or $50 a share would not be happy to see him driving it to under $10.

Another problem, which will bother any rational investor, is that the company is losing money hand over fist. In 2023, the company had an income of $4.1 million and lost $58 million, with little prospect of improving its performance. If Trump loses the election, it will rapidly head toward $0.

So, who will win and lose if the stock implodes? Trump will probably be able to salvage something if he isn't too greedy and sells off slowly enough to avoid tanking the stock instantly. Other investors will probably take a beating. The taxpayers will also lose, because the people who bought the stock back at $50 and end up selling at $10 will have a tax-deductible loss they can use to cancel out any profits they made on actual investments. This will cost the IRS (and thus the government) money. (V)

Congressional Republicans Have a Money Problem

House and Senate Republicans are looking at a big hole. Their Democratic counterparts have more money than they do. As of the end of June, the Democratic committees had $37 million more than the Republican committees. As a consequence, House and Senate Democrats are on the air much more than the Republicans.

In the short term, the problem is only going to get worse. Kamala Harris has been collecting more money than she can probably spend. So, she has decided to donate $24.5 million to support downballot Democrats. The DSCC will get $10 million, the DCCC will get $10 million, and the DLCC (which focuses on state legislative races) will get $2.5 million. The DGA (Democratic Governors Association) and DAGA (like MAGA, but with a "D," and standing for "Democratic Attorneys General Association") will also get a million each.

No doubt, each of them will appreciate the donation, but given that Harris raised $540 million in the first month of her campaign, she has money to burn. It really doesn't matter if TV viewers in Philadelphia each see 12 ads per night or 15 ads per night. In fact, beyond a certain point, they will begin to seriously annoy people, unless all the ads are different and clever. Winning the election but not controlling Congress will make her a lame duck from Day 1, so we are surprised that she is being so frugal with the other committees. To us, capturing Congress really ought to be a very high priority for her.

Maybe the reason Harris is not helping the DSCC and DCCC more is that they are doing pretty well on their own. Both groups are already running ad blitzes in multiple markets. One way she could spend money that helps both herself and Senate candidates is to open offices in key swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada, where there are also important Senate races. The offices can help both Harris and the Senate candidates. While too many ads can annoy voters, there is no such thing as too many offices or too big a ground game. The offices can be staffed with people whose job right now is to get people registered, especially women, young people, and minorities. Even a one-person office in a rural county could help if the person running it knows how to find likely Democrats to register, for example, on a college campus in the county.

At a Republican retreat at Jackson Hole, WY, in August, Dan Conston, president of the largest Republican House super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, said he needed $35 million to compete with the Democrats. He could go, hat in hand, to wealthy donors, and see if they are willing to pony up. The problem is that rich fat cats generally understand the concept of return on investment very well. They tend to be willing to throw money at the Republicans if they believe they will win and can then help them, either by cutting their taxes or preventing the Democrats from raising them. But current House polling on the generic ballot is moving toward the Democrats, and the prospect of losing the House doesn't make potential donors more willing to pony up.

Of course, candidates with a national standing are often good at raising their own money and don't need help from the party committees. For example, in Arizona, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and his allies have a $57 million advantage over Kari Lake, and this doesn't even account for his built-in advantage since he is the sitting congressman from Phoenix. Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) each have a $41 million advantage over their challengers. Baldwin's challenger, Eric Hovde, is a multimillionaire banker who lives in Laguna Beach, CA, who could close the gap personally. But polls show him way behind Baldwin and he may not want to throw good money after bad, especially since it is his money in question.

Yesterday, the Trump campaign announced that it had raised $130 million in August and had $295 million in the bank. The Harris campaign has not reported its August haul yet, though details that the campaign has shared indicate that her take was north of $300 million. (V)

North Carolina Gubernatorial Candidate Mark Robinson Was Addicted to Porn

Sometimes things people did a long time ago come back to haunt them when they go into politics. Republicans have tried to make a big deal out of Gov. Tim Walz' (DFL-MN) DUI arrest in 1995. But he is not the only politician with a past. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R-NC), who is running for governor of his state, has one, too.

Robinson is making a big pitch to evangelicals due to his strong sense of morality, including his staunch opposition to pornography. In a classic case of "he doth protest too much, methinks" investigative reporters have discovered that in the 1990s and 2000s, Robinson was a major customer of a Greensboro, NC, porn shop. Six eyewitnesses have told reporters that Robinson regularly came in five nights a week to "preview" new porn movies in a private booth for $8. One of the witnesses, a store employee named Louis Money, said that Robinson was a big spender at the store. He knew the employees so well that he sometimes brought them a pizza. He also bought hundreds of dollars worth of bootleg porn videos. The ironic thing here is that due to this generosity (and his big spending ways), they remember him very plainly. If he had been a tad more discreet, maybe they would have long since forgotten him. Don't say that this site never has useful life lessons for readers.

In his memoir, Robinson noted that he was guilty of bad money management. That is a somewhat oblique reference to his filing for bankruptcy three times between 1998 and 2003. At least we now know where his money went. He was supporting a local small business—an honorable thing to do, of course.

Will this matter? It could. Sometimes presidential races have coattails that help down-ballot candidates, but it can also work the other way. Current polling has Robinson's Democratic opponent, North Carolina AG Josh Stein, leading by 9 points based on the average of 46 polls. And the story about Robinson's porn consumption and related bankruptcies isn't going to improve his standing with evangelicals much. Stein could possibly have coattails that help Kamala Harris in the Tar Heel State, since there is no Senate race there this year. (V)

Today's Presidential Polls

Lots of polls today. It's going to be close.

State	Kamala Harris	Donald Trump	Start	End	Pollster
Arizona	44%	49%	Aug 23	Aug 29	SSRS for CNN
Georgia	48%	47%	Aug 23	Aug 29	SSRS for CNN
Michigan	48%	43%	Aug 23	Aug 29	SSRS for CNN
Nevada	48%	47%	Aug 23	Aug 29	SSRS for CNN
Oklahoma	40%	56%	Aug 23	Aug 30	Sooner Poll
Pennsylvania	47%	47%	Aug 23	Aug 29	SSRS for CNN
Wisconsin	50%	44%	Aug 23	Aug 29	SSRS for CNN

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

Today's Senate Polls

We still think it's, well, weird, that so many Arizonans are going to vote for Trump and Gallego. It doesn't compute.

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
Arizona	Ruben Gallego	47%	Kari Lake	44%	Aug 23	Aug 29	SSRS for CNN
Maryland	Angela Alsobrooks	46%	Larry Hogan	41%	Aug 23	Aug 28	SSRS for CNN
Michigan	Elissa Slotkin	44%	Mike Rogers	35%	Aug 26	Aug 29	Glengariff Group
Michigan	Elissa Slotkin	47%	Mike Rogers	41%	Aug 23	Aug 29	SSRS for CNN
Minnesota	Amy Klobuchar*	50%	Royce White	36%	Aug 27	Aug 29	SurveyUSA
Nevada	Jacky Rosen*	50%	Sam Brown	40%	Aug 23	Aug 29	SSRS for CNN
Pennsylvania	Bob Casey*	46%	David McCormick	46%	Aug 23	Aug 29	SSRS for CNN
Wisconsin	Tammy Baldwin*	51%	Eric Hovde	45%	Aug 23	Aug 29	SSRS for CNN

* Denotes incumbent

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