Trump, Vance and the Republicans

Excellent question. Will the media treat Trump’s interview today the same as Biden’s poor debate performance? Seems unlikely although the NYT and Washington Post did have the story about Trump questioning Harris’ identity on the front page today. Most of the time, the media seem to have different standards for Trump vs Biden and the Democrats. The media tends to give Trump a free pass when he should not get one.



Jen "We aren't going back " Rubin @jrubinblogger
Media: This is a test. Will you keep Trump's racism on page one for 3 weeks, demand he exit the race, press every R to comment on it, consult African American studies experts, talk to communities of color ? You know, do your job as resolutely as you did on Biden's age. Try it.

Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan
He’s a racist. For nine long years I have begged my colleagues in the media to call him what we all know he is, what he proves he is on a daily basis.

He’s a racist. An open racist running for president.


Edward-Isaac Dovere @isaacdovere
Trump so far since yesterday:
-agrees Emhoff is “a crappy Jew”
-Harris “doesn't like Jewish people”
-Harris “was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a Black person”
-Schumer “has become a Palestinian”

Really interesting perspective on Trumps comments today and connection to the report released today on the Black Lives Matter protests.

oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/24-085.pdf

heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-31-2024


Trump’s petulant fury at the Black journalists today suggests just how dangerous it would be to put him in control of the nation’s law enforcement and military capabilities a second time. We were given a glimpse of how eager he was to turn those capabilities against American citizens in his first term when the Department of Justice today released the report of the department’s inspector general concerning the Trump administration’s response to the Black Lives Matter protests in Washington, D.C., in summer 2020.

The authors of the report emphasized that they were unable to compel the testimony of officials including then–attorney general William Barr, his chief of staff William Levi, FBI deputy director David Bowdich, and FBI Washington Field Office assistant director in charge Timothy Slater.

But what they were able to put together even without their information was that, although the protests were largely peaceful, Trump was desperate to get 2,000 federal officers into the area around the White House on June 1, 2020, to increase federal control of the city. To the frustration of the people in charge of the agencies, he could not articulate a mission, only that he wanted 2,000 people around him. With only about 90 officers from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the Bureau of Prisons, and the U.S. Marshals Service on hand early on the morning of June 1, Barr told a conference call with Justice Department leadership that Trump wanted “max strength” on the streets, and to “dominate the streets.”

Trump then echoed that language in a call with the nation’s governors, saying, “If you don’t dominate your city and your state, they’re [going to] walk away with you. And we’re doing it in Washington, in D.C., we’re going to do something that people haven’t seen before. But you’re going to have total domination.”

Then, the report says, the administration began to prepare to invoke the Insurrection Act, an 1807 law that authorizes the president to deploy the U.S. military and federalized National Guard troops within the United States to suppress civil disorder, insurrection, or rebellion. At 4:48 that evening, lawyers from the Office of Legal Counsel, who advise the president, received an email that the president was going to address the nation at 6:00 and that a proclamation invoking the Insurrection Act should be “ready for signing” before then.

Shortly after, additional officers from the Bureau of Prisons—without names on their uniforms because they do not usually wear them, if you remember the concern over those nameless uniforms—arrived at the White House. Barr was in charge of clearing the streets, and ultimately, by about 9:00 he felt things were calm enough that he advised Trump against invoking the Insurrection Act.

But it was evidently a close thing.

Completely predictable. Even Trump's own people are advising him to talk about immigration, not insult VP Harris. But, he's not listening.

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/08/01/trump-harris-race-gender-record/

Donald Trump’s aides have said they aim to beat Vice President Harris in November by portraying her as a San Francisco liberal who is responsible for illegal border crossings and inflation.

Yet in the past 48 hours, Trump has repeatedly deviated from that messaging to more familiar territory: personal attacks.

People close to Trump doubt that the personal attacks will be an effective strategy. Alleging the election was stolen, defending Jan. 6 rioters and getting into fights with Harris about race or personality “are not winning issues for us,” one person close to Trump said. Comments that seem derogatory about women also don’t help, and neither does attacking her personally, this person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to criticize the former president’s messaging so far.

Trump has publicly lamented the change at the top of the ticket, calling it a “coup” at a recent event. In private, he’s complained about Harris’s rise in the polls, according to another person familiar with his thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations. Trump has also been frustrated that Harris has received positive media coverage, while his vice-presidential pick, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), has come under criticism, this person said.

The Trump campaign’s messaging is “scattershot,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who worked on Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign.

“They weren’t able to brand Biden in 2020 and they haven’t been able to brand Kamala Harris in 2024,” he said. “The arguments that they do make are very ideological in nature, which has never worked for Trump.”

Conant added that Trump does best when he portrays himself as the outsider and said the campaign hasn’t done enough to portray Harris as an establishment pick.

“Instead, they’re saying she’s too progressive which is not an argument that’s proven very effective in modern politics,” he said.

I know some Trump supporters are racist and stupid, but do Trump and the Republicans really think suggesting that a person is limited to one race is a winning message? Especially considering Vance's children are bi-racial? Instead of backtracking, they're just doubling down.



cognitively unfit


No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen @noliewithbtc
Trump thinks claiming asylum at the border means you belong in an insane asylum.

He thinks biracial people can’t identify with both of their parents’ heritages.

He spends every rally claiming a fictional cannibal serial killer is real.

He is cognitively unfit.