Main page    Jul. 24


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New polls: (None)
Dem pickups: (None)
GOP pickups: AZ GA ME MI NV NH PA WI

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Take a look at this:

Any site that does any sort of polling aggregation is trying to recalibrate right now, and it's going to take some time before things are back to normal operating order.

That includes us, of course. At the top left of the screen, we have four or five things, depending on the day: (1) a picture of the Democratic candidate (or presumptive candidate) for president, (2) the number of EVs predicted for the Democratic candidate by polls, (3) the number of EVs that are presently tied, if any are, (4) the number of EVs predicted for the Republican candidate by polls and (5) a picture of the Republican candidate (or presumptive candidate) for president.

Under normal circumstances, the person who is the presidential candidate (or presumptive candidate) for a party and the person who is being asked about by pollsters are the same person. Right now, however, circumstances are not normal. Kamala Harris is the presumptive candidate, but nearly all of the polling data in the map reflects polling of Joe Biden as the presumptive candidate. Once Biden dropped out, we thought carefully about what to do, and decided that, for the moment, the most accurate thing was to put Harris' picture up (since she IS the presumptive candidate) but to leave Biden's name up (since it's HIS polling data). We will change the name fairly soon, but for now, this is not an error, it's a conscious decision.

On a similar note, we are aware that Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) sometimes styles himself as JD Vance, without the periods. We have considered the matter, and found that both his Wikipedia entry and his U.S. Senate page alternate between both usages. We also found that various newspapers have been using different stylings. In circumstances like that, we tend to follow the lead of The Washington Post, and the Post is using J.D. and not JD. While we are open to revisiting our decision as events warrant, we are going to stick with J.D. for now, since that is what the Post is doing, since it is more grammatically correct, and since that will maintain consistency with the posts we've already written.

And now we return to our regularly scheduled programming.

The Latest from GOPland...

As you may have heard, it's been a busy week in politics. The Republican response to the change at the top of the ticket has been... interesting, to say the least. Here's a rundown of the most notable storylines:

• Cold Feet, Part I: It has been less than a week, and—surprise, surprise!—Donald Trump is already having second thoughts about choosing J.D. Vance as his running mate.
  
  There are three, somewhat related, problems here. The first, and the biggest, is that Vance is a terrible pick for current circumstances. Republican insiders concede that they did not really expect Vance to win over any new voters; his job was to fire up the MAGA crowd and increase turnout among the base. But up against Harris, Trump could really use someone who might pull in a few moderate/independent votes. And what the Trump campaign really doesn't need, up against a woman candidate, is someone with a mile-long track record of statements and political positions that are distasteful to women voters. At various times, Vance has said that abortions should ONLY be available if the mother's life is in danger, that women who do not have children (specifically, Harris) are unhappy "childless cat ladies," that the government should be able to aggressively monitor women—including their menstruation schedules—to make sure they aren't getting illegal abortions, and that women stuck in violent marriages should stay for the benefit of their kids. Do you think the Democrats might bring some of these things up during the campaign? We do. And so does Trump.
  
  Second, Trump and his operation (particularly his sons) did not anticipate how much of a problem Vance's negatives would be. As we wrote yesterday, some Trumpers are rebelling against a man who is married to a non-Christian, non-white woman. In addition, Trump & Co. apparently did not foresee that there would be enormous attention paid to Vance's very numerous and very pointed anti-Trump comments.
  
  Third, and finally, Trump must be at least somewhat aware that Vance's polling numbers are really, really terrible. Across the various polls conducted since the Republican convention (more on this below), Vance has an average favorability rating of -6 (roughly speaking, he averages about 30% favorable and 36% unfavorable). CNN took a look, and found that he's the only VP candidate since 1980 to be underwater after the convention. And note that 1980 cutoff does not reveal that Walter Mondale or George H.W. Bush was even more unpopular than Vance, it reveals that it's not especially easy to find favorability ratings for Veeps, the further back you go.
  
  What this means, perhaps most importantly, is that Vance is even less popular than Sarah Palin was. And, as everyone reading this knows, she ended up dragging down the McCain/Palin ticket. Now, with roughly one-quarter of respondents not yet having an opinion about Vance, could his numbers improve once people get to know him better? Sure, it's possible. But given his history and his not-so-pleasant personality, you shouldn't bet on it. Remember, in his only political campaign, in which Ohio voters got to know him VERY well, he got 53% of the vote. That was enough to win, but his 6-point margin of victory was a staggering 19 points behind Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH), who won 62% to 37%.
  
  We remain skeptical that Trump would dump Vance, because that would speak to a campaign that is in disarray and is running scared, and would reflect poorly on Trump's decision-making skills. It's one thing to dump your Secretary of the Interior or your chief of staff, it's another to jettison your running mate. But it's definitely not impossible at this point.
  
  
• Cold Feet, Part II: It would seem that Trump is not the only one having second thoughts about a decision he announced just last week. Yesterday, Elon Musk sat for an interview with right-winger Jordan Peterson, and said that while he (Musk) will still be supporting the Trump campaign, he will NOT be donating $45 million/month, and really, he has NO IDEA where that figure came from.
  
  Keep in mind that $45 million/month, or about $150 million for the balance of the campaign, is nothing to Musk. If you currently have $10,000 in the bank, then it's the equivalent of your donating $6 between now and November. So, it is unlikely that Musk got gun-shy when he realized what the price tag would be. Similarly, Musk is still supporting Trump; he certainly did not return to the Democratic fold because a white guy was replaced by a Black woman.
  
  We can only come up with one explanation for Musk's sudden change of heart. Last week, he was extremely confident that Trump would win, and he wanted to be in good with the incoming administration, while not worrying about stepping on the toes of the outgoing administration. Now, the outcome of the election is far less certain. And, as a businessman, Musk must have concluded that he better not put all his eggs in one party's basket. The Democrats aren't likely to take revenge against Musk if he goes all-in on Trump, but they also aren't likely to take his calls should they hold on to the White House/Senate, or should they retake the House.
  
  
• That Did Not Take Long, Part I: We wondered if it would take more or less than 24 hours for some right-winger to claim that Harris is ineligible to be president because she's not a citizen. Turns out it was... less. In a tweet that's already been viewed more than 5 million times, a Trumper named Mike Engelman decreed: "Kamala Harris is not eligible to run for President. Neither of her parents were natural born American citizens when she was born."
  
  Harris was born in Oakland, CA, in 1964. She is thus a natural born citizen, specifically through jus soli citizenship. This was conclusively established in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, a case that, by chance, also involved someone who was born in the California Bay Area to a parent of Asian descent.
  
  Surely it's only a matter of time until Engelman or some other mouth breather is claiming that her birth certificate is a fraud, and Harris was really born in... Jamaica? Antarctica? Canada?
  
  
• That Did Not Take Long, Part II: The whole birth-certificate nonsense, in the case of both Barack Obama and Harris, is really just a dog whistle. The not-so-subtle subtext is "This person is not a REAL American, and so can't be placed in a position of power over the people who actually are REAL Americans."
  
  Another dog whistle along these same lines is the claim that [prominent person of color] did not actually EARN whatever it is they've accomplished, it was handed to them because of their race. In Obama's case, his entire academic and political career were attributed, by many right-wingers, to Affirmative Action. In Harris' case, that term is a little bit old-fashioned, and so has been replaced by "DEI." To take one example, from among many provided yesterday, Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY) decreed: "Intellectually, just really kind of the bottom of the barrel. I think she was a DEI hire. And I think that that's what we're seeing, and I just don't think that they have anybody else."
  
  Republican leadership, in both the House and the Senate, is imploring members not to attack Harris on the basis of her race and/or gender. Good luck with that, Mike and Mitch. Oh, and by the way, the Trump campaign has already announced that it will work to "Willie Horton" Harris. Who knew that "Willie Horton" was a verb? In any case, the infamous Willie Horton ad was the most overtly racist presidential campaign TV ad in U.S. history.
  
  
• That Did Not Take Long, Part III: Besides conspiracy theories and racist dog whistles/bullhorns, another key item in the Trumpublican bag of tricks is impeachment. They already impeached DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and they tried to impeach Biden. Yesterday, in a terribly predictable move, a Republican filed articles of impeachment against Harris. The only surprise is that it was Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), who beat Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO) to the punch.
  
  The "high crimes and misdemeanors" alleged by Ogles initially had to do with border security: "Kamala Devi Harris willfully and systematically refused to uphold the immigration laws, failed to control the border to the detriment of national security, compromised public safety, and violated the rule of law, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States..." He later filed an updated version accusing her of defrauding the American people: "Kamala Devi Harris has knowingly misled the people of the United States and the Congress of the United States, principally to obfuscate the physical and cognitive well-being of the President of the United States, Joe Biden."
  
  This is what grasping at straws looks like. We seriously doubt that Ogles' articles will see the floor of the House, as that would be very bad optics for the Republican Party. If they somehow do, and they are somehow approved, then they'll just be pencil whipped right into the garbage by Senate Democrats.
  
  
• That Did Not Take Long, Part IV: The Republicans aren't just grasping at straws metaphorically, they are also doing so literally. There was absolutely no question that Harris would be attacked as a pinko who is further left than Karl Marx; (Z) wrote that over the weekend, and (V) wrote it for yesterday's post. The Trump campaign has released its first anti-Harris ad, and it describes her as "dangerously liberal":
  
  

  Kamala Harris is dangerously liberal. pic.twitter.com/QYeReSdJuU

  — MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) July 23, 2024

  
  It makes us wonder what someone who is "safely liberal" would look like.
  
  The specific pinko commie policy issue that Republicans have glommed onto, for now, is a Biden administration initiative to eliminate single-use plastic items across the federal government, including plastic plates, plastic cups and plastic straws. "I mean, heck, she wants to get rid of plastic straws, for goodness sake," said Trump adviser Jason Miller in an interview with NBC. "Whereas Joe Biden was renting some of the territory on the more extreme left, Kamala Harris owns it." We told you they were literally grasping at straws.
  
  
• Take 'em to Court, Part I: You knew it was coming, and now it has. The Trump campaign has filed a complaint with the FEC, demanding that the Commission block Harris from accessing the money in the Biden-Harris war chest. We shall see what happens, but: (1) the campaign account had both Biden and Harris' names on it, and (2) it would be rather hard to argue that the $100 million that has been donated since Biden dropped out was not intended for Harris. In other words, Team Trump has a very uphill battle here, particularly since at least two of the six FEC commissioners, including one of the three Republicans, have already said Harris is entitled to the money.
  
  
• Take 'em to Court, Part II: Similarly, Trump implied that he might file suit demanding to be reimbursed for all the money his campaign spent running against Biden. Exactly where he would file that suit (FEC? Federal court?) and exactly who would be responsible for paying the reimbursement are not clear.
  
  
• Take 'em to Court, Part III: Nikki Haley also got into the act, in a small way. She sent a cease-and-desist letter to a group called "Haley Voters for Harris" telling them to stop using her name, because it implies she supports Harris. In our view, the name of the group does not imply that at all. So, if we had gotten that letter, we would have told Haley to shove it.
  
  
• It's a Conspiracy!, Part I: When right-wingers start with the conspiracies, the antisemitism is never far behind. And so it is that the GOP's favorite Jewish bugaboo, George Soros, is being accused of orchestrating Biden's demise behind the scenes.
  
  
• It's a Conspiracy!, Part II: Another popular conspiracy theory is that Biden did not actually sign the letter announcing his withdrawal from the presidential race. Here are his regular signature (top) and the signature from the letter:
  
  
  
  The "case" for forgery is that Biden usually adds "Jr." and he does not usually underline his name. Anyhow, because of the alleged forgery, many Trumpers are claiming, the withdrawal is not valid, and Biden is still the Democratic candidate.
  
  This is, of course, all kinds of stupid. There is no "legal" procedure for withdrawing from the race. Biden can sign a letter, send a tweet, give a speech, or just circulate his decision among prominent Democrats. Even if it turned out someone else signed the letter, it would not matter one bit, unless Biden announced he was still in the race and he still wanted to be the nominee. He has, of course, made no such announcement.
  
  
• It's a Conspiracy!, Part III: The even more unhinged conspiracy theory is that Biden is either on death's door, or is already dead. How stupid is this one? All you really need to know is that Lauren Boebert is the loudest champion of this particular line of "thinking." She has probably seen the movie El Cid one too many times. After all, it does star gun nut Charlton Heston.
  
  
• She Nearly Got Me Killed!: Donald Trump is also workshopping his personal lines of attack against Harris. Yesterday, after once again congratulating himself on his pseudo-martyrdom, he declared that it was Biden and Harris who nearly got him killed. Because if you check the Constitution, it says that the two official duties of the vice president are to preside over the Senate and to keep a close eye on the United States Secret Service.
  
  
• Nickname: Trump also debuted his new nickname for Harris: Lyin' Kamala Harris. Even by his rather low standards, isn't that kind of... sad? Plus, Trump already used that for "Lyin' Joe Biden." Although, in Biden's case, at least it basically rhymes.
  
  
• Let's Debate: Trump has already answered the question that was on everyone's mind, speaking with reporters yesterday, he said that he is "absolutely" willing to debate Harris, even if the debate is hosted by ABC.
  
  Note that saying he is WILLING to debate is not quite the same thing as saying he WILL debate. We assume Trump's words were chosen to give him an out, along the lines of "I was willing, but ABC very unfairly [fill in grievance here]." This said, if he doesn't show up, it's going to look like he's scared to face off against Harris, which is not great for his macho image. We certainly hope he does show up; it will be very interesting to see how he matches up against a veteran prosecutor.

From all of this, we draw two major conclusions. The first is that the famous modern-day GOP messaging discipline breaks down when it bumps into the famous modern-day GOP propensity toward racism and misogyny. It's just too tempting for some members of the red team, including the guy at the top of the ticket, to try to make political hay out of Harris' race and/or gender. And the fact is, such behavior is rewarded by the crowds at rallies, conferences, etc. The problem is that it doesn't play well with the electorate at large.

The second conclusion is that it sure looks like the Republicans got caught flat-footed by Joe Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race. Members of the red team are running around like chickens with their heads cut off, and are throwing anything and everything at the wall to see what sticks. That includes, once again, the guy at the top of the ticket.

Up until this point in the cycle, the Trump campaign had been pretty impressive in terms of being a polished, professional operation, as compared to the seat-of-the-pants approach we saw in 2016. But to be unprepared for the switch from Biden to Harris? That's amateur hour. First of all, Biden's demise became much more likely than not at least a week ago. Second, even if Biden's demise was a longshot, a political party has to be prepared for all eventualities. For all the Will-Rogers-style snark about how the Democrats are constantly disorganized, we 100% guarantee you that the party leadership is prepared, should J.D. Vance or Nikki Haley or Gov. Ron DeSantis suddenly become the Republican nominee.

Anyhow, we suspect this won't be the only item like this that we'll have in the next week or two. (Z)

...And from DemWorld

Of course, it's not only the Republicans who are operating in overdrive right now, although they appear to be considerably less orderly than the Democrats. In any case, here's the latest from the blue team:

• Rally Time: Kamala Harris traveled to Wisconsin and held her first rally since becoming the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party. We're not sure how much these events really matter, but the event did make two things clear. First, there's much enthusiasm for the new candidate. Second, Harris is not afraid to take off the gloves and throw down. "I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump's type," she declared.
  
  
• Falling in Line: As expected, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) bestowed their endorsements on Harris yesterday, joining Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who did the same on Monday evening.
  
  At this point, the only upper-echelon Democrat who has not endorsed Harris is Barack Obama. As an institutionalist, there is zero chance that he does not support her. The general assumption is that he's holding off for a few days out of respect for Joe Biden.
  
  
• Biden to Speak: Speaking of Joe Biden, the address to the nation that he promised was coming will take place tonight at 8:00 p.m. ET. Appearing from the Oval Office, Biden will presumably explain his thinking in deciding to withdraw from the race, and will also make a pitch for Harris. The White House will undoubtedly stream the speech here, and it will be carried live on all the news networks. Oh, and Fox is going to carry it, too.
  
  
• The Veepstakes: With the Convention right around the corner, there's no time to waste when it comes to choosing a VP candidate. The firm of former AG Eric Holder is doing the vetting, and a few things are currently known: (1) there are currently about 10 candidates under consideration; (2) Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC), Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) and Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) have received packets to fill out for the vetting process and (3) Govs. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) and Jared Polis (D-CO) have not received packets. Polis remarked: "My phone hasn't rung yet. Look, if they, if they do the polling and it turns out that they need a 49-year-old, balding, gay Jew from Boulder, Colorado, they got my number."
  
  We have had a number of readers take exception to our observation that the VP pick is going to be a bland centrist white guy, probably from a swing state. These readers generally point out that the American people might respond very well to a two-woman ticket, particularly given that abortion figures to be a key issue (or THE key issue) in this election.
  
  We do not disagree that the American people might respond well to a two-woman ticket (or a one woman, one gay white guy ticket). However, when we write that it's going to be a bland, centrist white guy, we are not giving our preference, nor are we saying what we think the Democrats SHOULD do. What we are doing is predicting, with some very high degree of confidence, what they WILL do. The last four Democratic tickets have featured one person who was a straight, center-left white guy and one person who was not a straight, center-left white guy. Until the Party shows us something different, we must assume this will be their approach to constructing a presidential ticket. And Harris is already occupying the "not a straight, center-left white guy" slot, so...

So, that's one party that is flailing about wildly, and another that's got more than a semblance of order. It all points to the Democrats having been prepared for this, and the Republicans getting caught with their pants down. (Z)

The First Harris-Trump Polls Are In

The last 24 hours has seen the release of four national preference polls conducted after Joe Biden announced his departure from the race. Here are the head-to-head numbers:

Pollster	Trump	Harris	Net
Quinnipiac	49%	47%	Trump +2
Reuters	42%	44%	Harris +2
NPR/PBS/Marist	46%	45%	Trump +1
MorningConsult	47%	45%	Trump +2

We say, once again, that it's a little too early to be taking polls of the race seriously. However, here are some tentative observations:

• It appears that, despite the assassination attempt, the RNC, and the unveiling of the VP, Trump remains stuck at his usual ceiling of around 47%-48%
  
  
• On the whole, the number of undecideds is up relative to the previous iterations of these polls. And the data suggests that is being driven by independent women voters who have moved from the Trump column to the undecided column.
  
  
• With Harris in the race, the support for third-party/independent candidates shrinks a fair bit. That suggests that "a pox on both your houses" voters (a.k.a. "double haters") might be open to taking a look at her candidacy.

Tony Fabrizio released a memo yesterday in which he predicted that there will be a "Harris Honeymoon" in the polls, where her numbers are artificially high because of wall-to-wall positive coverage she is going to get in the media.

Fabrizio could be right about this; after all, this is what he does for a living. That said, he also works for a Donald Trump, who is known to fire pollsters when he's unhappy with what they are reporting. So, Fabrizio could be engaging in some proactive cover-your-a** activity. It is also the case that he generally pooh-poohs polling numbers favorable to Democrats.

Actually, truth be told, we don't particularly buy Fabrizio's assessment. To start, he's clearly wrong about the overwhelmingly positive coverage that Harris is going to get. Yes, she's getting a lot of positive coverage, but the media loves, loves, loves to write contrarian pieces in times like these. So, we have seen dozens and dozens of "here's a big problem for Harris" pieces in the last couple of days, some of them extremely contrived. For example, this op-ed from The Atlantic declares that the Democrats were right to cashier Biden, but they are "making a huge mistake" in rallying around Harris so enthusiastically. Huh? To take another example, this report from The Hill says that Democratic donor/fundraiser John Morgan will not be working to help elect Harris. Given that he wanted Biden to be replaced by Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) or Andy Beshear, both of them moderate white male Southerners, you kind of know what the general problem is. In any event, from this one individual, the reporter draws the conclusion that this "could be a sign of some division among Democrats over the likelihood of Harris being their standard-bearer."

Here is our best guess as to where the polls are headed (and note, this is almost entirely gut feel, so take it with several grains of salt). As we note above, the extremely well known Trump looks to be at his usual ceiling. The less well known Harris, by contrast, has room to grow her support, as she gives voters some sense of who she is and where she stands on the issues. She could also lose support, mind you, as she introduces herself. But she at least has the possibility to gain support. We don't think Trump really does.

Also, there is a potential ace in the hole, as it were: the VP candidate. For the reasons we outline above, we very seriously doubt that J.D. Vance will attract new votes to the Republican ticket as he campaigns. And he might well push some votes away. On the other hand, if Harris chooses well, could she pick up a point or two or three in the polls? We think that is very possible. In particular, if it's one of the three apparent frontrunners—Beshear, Josh Shapiro or Mark Kelly—could you imagine that winning over some number of independent/centrist voters? We can. Meanwhile, can you imagine some sizable chunk of the electorate being outraged by the pick? We are having trouble seeing what group or groups that might be (particularly if it's Kelly who gets the nod).

There are going to be a lot more polls in the next week or two; we'll be very interested to see if they comport with what these first few polls are reporting. (Z)

Menendez Resigns...

We already knew Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) knew how to take a bribe; it turns out he also knows how to take a hint. Yesterday, he sent a letter to Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) advising that he is stepping down from the Senate, effective August 20.

Menendez explains in the letter that he needs the 3 weeks between now and then to properly deal with staffing and other matters that are currently pending. Truth be told, we suspect he just wants another couple of paychecks, and that he'll spend the next 3 weeks goldbricking. That said, he might take this opportunity to properly clean his sticky fingers before he walks... like an Egyptian.

Undoubtedly, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is grateful for two things. The first is that Menendez went without a fight. The second is that the governor of New Jersey is a Democrat. This would have been much tougher for the blue team if getting rid of a corrupt member also meant giving up a crucial seat to a Republican. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Jon Tester (D-MT), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), etc. damn well better keep their noses clean.

Murphy has already said that he will not appoint his wife to serve the last few months of Menendez' term, and that the candidates he is seriously considering are Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way (D), U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas and former state Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells (D). All of them are women of color who would be caretakers, so the Governor is basically running the Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) playbook. (Z)

...And So Does USSS Director

Someone had to pay for the too-close-for-comfort assassination attempt on Donald Trump, and now someone has. Following a very poor appearance before the House Oversight Committee on Monday, USSS Director Kimberly Cheatle announced her resignation yesterday.

The initial failure was surely not Cheatle's fault, since she can hardly be expected to oversee every set of arrangements made by every USSS protective detail. Similarly, she's clearly not responsible for other high-profile USSS missteps in recent years, like the guy who hopped the White House fence while Barack Obama was in residence, or the advance scouts who got drunk and hired a bunch of prostitutes in Colombia. But someone's head had to roll, and she was the obvious target by virtue of her job, and then that awful performance at the hearing.

As we note above, Trump is trying to politicize this by blaming Cheatle's failures on the Biden administration. Since she was indeed appointed by Biden, that line of attack might work if Biden was still the Democratic candidate for president. We think it will be rather harder to pin the blame for a less-than-stellar USSS director on someone who was vice president, and had no official role in the selection. (Z)

Netanyahu May Be Thinking Twice about His Visit

Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in the U.S. on Monday and, like a Vegas lounge act, he'll be here all week. Thus far, his trip has not been especially productive.

To start, when the Israeli PM arrived in the U.S., there were no dignitaries there to greet him. The White House doesn't much like him, and the Republicans—who are the ones who invited him to come to speak to Congress—apparently did not see fit to send a delegation. We don't know exactly why that is, although there are some people on the Hill who say that with all the drama in domestic politics, they kinda forgot he was coming.

On the other hand, there are some people who did not forget the PM, namely the anti-Israel protesters. Netanyahu WAS greeted by a group of THEM at the airport, and the demonstrators will be out in force when he addresses a joint session of Congress today.

Netanyahu's speech is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. ET, which is primetime in Israel (they are seven hours ahead). This somewhat suggests that his audience is the people back home, and not so much the people in the United States. There is some speculation that he will announce that a ceasefire in Gaza has been arranged, and that the remaining hostages will be released. If so, then his address will be big news. If not, he might well get swept entirely off the front pages by the Joe Biden address (see above), which will take place 6 hours later.

Speaking of Biden, he has not yet met with Netanyahu. They were supposed to meet yesterday, but the confab was postponed, and may (or may not) take place on Friday. Kamala Harris hasn't met with the PM yet, either. In fact, Netanyahu hasn't met with anyone prominent in Washington, as yet. Surely this is due to all the activity produced by the change in the Democratic ticket. It might also reflect a sense that Israel just got pushed way down the list of issues for 2024, since it's rather less plausible to pin events there on Harris as opposed to blaming them on "Genocide Joe."

Netanyahu is definitely going to meet with Donald Trump; the PM will travel to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring, and to try to mend broken fences, on Friday. Yesterday, Trump posted a letter he received from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, along with his (Trump's) response. In short, the two men spent much verbiage flattering each other, not unlike those cards that Trump exchanged with Kim Jong-Un.

We do not feel knowledgeable enough to figure out what Trump's playing at here. On one hand, his political needs dictate a strongly pro-Israel stance, Palestinians be damned. On the other hand, he's very susceptible to flattery, and does sometimes put the needs of his ego ahead of the needs of his political career. Also, since Trump is angry with Netanyahu, the former president might be trying to send a message to the PM about the price of disloyalty. Whatever is going on, it certainly looks like Netanyahu could have a tougher row to hoe, even with Trump, than he did in years past. (Z)

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