October 15, 2024

Tuesday, October 15, 2024. Annette’s News Roundup.

Kamala is always busy.

The Vice President will be the President to all Americans, even those addicted to Fox News.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris will be interviewed by Fox News anchor Bret Baier on Wednesday in Pennsylvania as she steps up her travel and conversations with media outlets in the closing stretch of the presidential campaign.

It will be her first sit down with the network, and her first interview with a news outlet outside of her ideological comfort zone since becoming the Democratic nominee.

Harris has previously granted interviews to CNN and CBS’ “60 Minutes,” as well as friendly venues including ABC’s “The View” and Howard Stern’s radio show.

Most of the interviews came within the past two weeks, representing a shift from her decision not to talk more with the media earlier in her campaign.

The Fox News interview is slated to air at 6 p.m. ET on Wednesday. Baier is Fox News’ chief political anchor and one of the few prominent people on the network whose identity isn’t associated with conservative commentary. (Associated Press).

The Vice President was in Pennsylvania yesterday. Watch her. 👇 https://x.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/1846000218858573972

Harris campaign targets Republicans in Arizona with new ad.

Kamala Harris’ campaign is out with a new ad targeting Republican voters in the battleground state of Arizona that features the GOP mayor of Mesa saying that he is a “lifelong Republican” but he has “always put country over party.”

“I know Donald Trump’s second term would be all about himself. That’s why, like so many other Republicans, I cannot support Donald Trump. Kamala Harris and I may not agree on everything, but I do know that she will always put country first,” says Mayor John Giles, who is also the Arizona Republicans for Harris advisory committee chair.

$370 million advertising buy between Labor Day and Election Day and will begin airing on Monday on local Arizona broadcasts and networks including Fox News Channel, among other cable programs, according to the Harris campaign. On Monday, Harris also launched ads in Pennsylvania and Michigan.

The ad featuring the Republican mayor of Mesa is part of the Harris campaign’s broader outreach to GOP voters in the state.

Last week, a Wall Street Journal poll found that the race is tight in Arizona with 47 percent of voters supporting Harris and 45 percent of voters supporting Trump. But while Harris has the support of 96 percent of Democrats, Trump only has the support of 88 percent of Republican and GOP-leaning voters, according to the poll. Eight percent of Republicans surveyed said they would vote for Harris.

The Harris campaign is targeting similar voters in Pennsylvania, where they recently launched ads aimed at winning over Trump-wary Republican and independent voters. In one of the ads, lifelong Republicans Bob and Kristina Lange explain that “January 6 was a wake up call.”

In August, the Harris campaign established a Republicans for Harris-Walz Advisory Committee focused on outreach to disaffected Republican voters with offshoots in battleground states like Arizona.

Last week, the vice president and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, campaigned with Giles and Jimmy McCain, the son of the late Sen. John McCain, who Trump has ridiculed and attacked but remains an important figure in a state that was once home to the Republican political establishment.

During Harris’ swing through Arizona last week, she repeatedly praised John McCain and recalled serving in the Senate with him. (Politico).

Harris campaign turns Trump's favorite weapon against him

Former President Trump has long stood out in the political field for his willingness to mock his political opponents — but as the 2024 presidential race enters its final weeks, he's increasingly getting a taste of his own medicine.

Why it matters: The Harris campaign has leveraged the power of memes and social media to reach a wider, younger audience and cast Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as funny, relatable, and capable to young voters. The campaign now uses those same tools to mock Trump and paint him in the opposite light. State of play: In a TikTok video posted Sunday, the Harris campaign created a carousel of photos of Trump seemingly poking fun at his fake tan to the tune of Sabrina Carpenter's hit song "Please Please Please," in which she sings about doing her "makeup so nice."

Another video, also posted Sunday, features one of Trump's rambling answers at an event, and the campaign labeled the former president "delulu" — Gen Z speak for "delusional."

As the nation braced for Hurricane Milton this month, the campaign posted a TikTok making fun of an old Trump press appearance in which he called a hurricane "one of the wettest we've seen from the standpoint of water."

When Trump refused to agree to a second presidential debate, the campaign posted a video of Trump overlaid with the sound of squawking chickens.

The big picture: Trump is well known for his love of nicknames for his opponents — from "Crooked Hillary" to "Sleepy Joe" — and often engages in personal attacks against Harris and Walz while on the campaign trail or via Truth Social posts.

Trump has at times engaged with memes and often shares them on his Truth Social channel, including ones that implied an endorsement from Taylor Swift. Between the lines: The Harris campaign has appeared to throw Trump off his game. The former president has struggled to generate a nickname that sticks for his opponent.

Trump has also appeared rattled by the Harris campaign's labeling of him and running-mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as "weird."

"I happen to be a very solid rock. We're not weird," Trump said last month in a rebuttal.

And it's not just Trump — his campaign has also been slow to capitalize on the power of memes.

The official Trump War Room account on X doesn't appear to create many memes. In October, it shared just three of its own — two comparing Walz to the Looney Tunes character Elmer Fudd and the third slamming purported shared values between Harris and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo). Instead, the Trump War Room account typically reposts and comments on clips of Harris at events or interviews, slamming her remarks as "word salad" or accusing her of injecting "cringe" into an interaction. "If anyone thinks that using emojis is some cutting-edge message technique, they are severely out of touch with reality," Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told Axios in August in response to some of the Harris campaign's memes. Zoom out: The Gen Z team behind the Harris campaign's social media presence has used humor to capitalize on viral TikTok trends and break through with younger voters online. (Axios)

One more thing.

Arrest made after FEMA crews forced to relocate amid reported threats over hurricane relief efforts (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fema-crews-relocate-reported-threats-armed-militia-hurricane-helene-relief/)

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Trump is always crazy.

I don’t think the information in this ever renewable section about Trump’s bizarre rantings, threats or actions will ever really surprise you, unless you are sometimes surprised by the range and extent of craziness Trump demonstrates (sample - immigrants eat your cats and dogs).

I just think it is important for everyone to keep up on the latest form of the craziness.

We just need to keep our file cabinets on him up to date.

Trump: Military could be used to preserve order on Election Day

Former President Donald Trump said that “if really necessary” the military should be called for “some sick people, radical-left lunatics,” when asked about if he is expecting chaos on Election Day in an interview Sunday with Maria Bartiromo.

“I think the bigger problem is the people from within. We have some very bad people, some sick people, radical-left lunatics,” Trump said to Bartiromo on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or if really necessary by the military. Because they can’t let that happen.”

When Bartiromo asked if he expects chaos on Election Day, Trump said, “No, not from the side that votes for Trump.” He also said when it comes to trouble on Election Day, the problem is “not even the people that have come in,” even if they are the ones who otherwise are “totally destroying our country.” Instead, Trump said he saw the enemy as coming “from within.”

The idea of deploying the military on Election Day would be an unprecedented intrusion on the voting process, though the Insurrection Act of 1807, enacted during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, gives the president the authority to deploy the National Guard and the military to combat insurrections or other disorder. During his presidency, Trump warned he would invoke the law in response to the protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, but ultimately did not do so.

The Harris campaign quickly responded to the comment: “Donald Trump is suggesting that his fellow Americans are worse ‘enemies’ than foreign adversaries, and he is saying he would use the military against them,” Harris campaign spokesperson Ian Sams said in a statement.

“Taken with his vow to be a dictator on ‘day one,’ calls for the ‘termination’ of the Constitution, and plans to surround himself with sycophants who will give him unchecked, unprecedented power if he returns to office, this should alarm every American who cares about their freedom and security,” Sams said. “What Donald Trump is promising is dangerous, and returning him to office is simply a risk Americans cannot afford.”

Bartiromo noted that President Joe Biden has said he does not know whether the transition will be peaceful, which Trump dismissed saying “he doesn’t have any idea what’s happening.” Trump reiterated later in the interview how he believes the “enemy from within” to be more dangerous than foreign adversaries, like China or Russia.

“The enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia and all these countries because if you have a smart president, he can handle them pretty easily,” Trump said later in the wide-ranging interview. “But the thing that’s tougher to handle are these lunatics that we have inside like Adam Schiff.”

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff was the impeachment manager on Trump’s first impeachment and is likely to become California’s next senator. Trump called Schiff “a total sleazebag” and “Adam shifty Schiff” during the Bartiromo interview. On Saturday, Trump held a rally in Coachella, California, where Schiff responded to Trump’s bashing of him and California.

“Yet another nonsensical rant about me filled with tired insults, lies about voting booths, and more, this time in my home state of California,” Schiff said in a post on X during Trump’s rally. “Seriously, Donald. Why are you so obsessed with me?”

In the interview, Trump also revealed new information on other topics, such as how if he is elected president, he plans to give Elon Musk a “cost-cutting” position. Trump said it would not be a Cabinet position — “he doesn’t want to be in the Cabinet, he wants to be in charge of cost-cutting” — and that it is a job Musk is “dying to do.”

“He’s a great guy. He’s given us a really powerful endorsement,” Trump said about Musk, who he noted was campaigning for him in Pennsylvania during the interview. “He’s actually campaigning because he says if we don’t win, we’re not going to have a country.”

Trump also said he was aware of conspiracy theories that the coronavirus was manufactured to help push him out of office, but did not believe them.

“A lot of people said they did the Covid thing because they wanted to see if they could get this guy out of office. I don’t believe that, I think it was just incompetence,” Trump said. “I think somebody came out of the Wuhan lab, had lunch with his girlfriend, she caught it and died.”

As for the next three weeks to the election, Trump said he is confident in his position in the polls in the swing states. He also added that he thinks the border is now a bigger issue than the economy.

“We’ve been led by a man who’s in great decline, and now we have a woman who’s worse than he is. And we have to win the election,” Trump said later in the interview. “November 5th is going to be the most important day in the history of our country.” (Politico).

By the way, this happened yesterday. Trump is not well. 👇

Vance plays follow the leader.

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For once, we want GOP Polling to be right.

Internal polling memo has warning signs for Senate Republicans.

The top GOP super PAC charged with flipping the Senate has found that most of its candidates are trailing their Democratic opponents, according to an internal polling memo obtained by POLITICO.

The new round of October polling from the Senate Leadership Fund shows all but one Republican candidate running behind Donald Trump in battleground states, a pattern that could sharply limit their ability to build a sizable majority unless they can force a change in the final weeks of the election.

Republicans are still favored to take control of the chamber, and their data brought some hopeful news with tightening races in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. But other pickup opportunities, namely Maryland and Michigan, are moving in the wrong direction. And Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, one of the two incumbents running in a state Trump won in 2020, looks surprisingly strong in Ohio.

The 2024 map is full of offensive targets for Republicans, including open seats in Michigan, Maryland and Arizona. They have a near-certain pickup in West Virginia and polling has consistently shown the GOP is ahead in Montana. But it’s unclear how many of the other seats Republicans are poised to flip. They’ve struggled from a serious fundraising gap at the candidate level. And Democrats have built large polling leads in some battlegrounds.

And now two GOP-held states, Texas and Nebraska, may be emerging as late-breaking problem spots.

“We still have a lot of work to do to maximize our gains in this critical Senate election,” the group’s president, Steven Law, wrote in the memo. “We need to add media markets and expand into the final week in all our target states. We also have to guard our flanks.”

Some notable takeaways:

Republicans have a modest but durable lead in Montana, where Democratic Sen. Jon Tester has trailed Republican Tim Sheehy in recent public polling.

In Ohio, Brown has dropped 7 percentage points since August but is still leading Republican Bernie Moreno by 6 points as of mid-October, and Moreno is running 8 points behind Trump.

The group sees tightening races in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, with Sens. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) just 2 points ahead and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) just 1 point ahead in October surveys.

Open-seat races in Michigan and Maryland are moving away from the GOP, with former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan down 7 points in the group’s last two polls and Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) growing her lead between September and October.

The memo warns of two defensive problems: In Texas, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is only up 1 point in the latest poll, and Law describes Nebraska as “a serious trouble-spot” where they are polling to “assess whether intervention is necessary” to help GOP Sen. Deb Fischer. (The incumbent released a poll last week showing her up 6 points.)

SLF or allied groups have been repeatedly polling across the top states, including twice in September alone in some of them, as they weigh financial investments in the final stretch. The nine-page memo, dated Oct. 8, noted that the group “will roll out further investments in these top-priority Senate races, based on our latest polling” by early next week.

Senate polling has diverged greatly at times this cycle, and some of SLF’s numbers do not match some private polls conducted by the Senate GOP campaign arm and others, especially in Texas, Ohio and Michigan. Many of the SLF polls are also likely in the margin of error.

But it’s SLF data that will primarily drive how the group spends tens of millions in the final weeks of the race.

SLF declined to comment on the memo, which was provided to POLITICO by someone outside the group.

Mixed results in the red states

The memo underscores just why Montana is the most vulnerable state for Democrats. Sheehy led Tester by 4 points, 48 to 44 percent, in SLF’s October poll of the race — a slightly smaller edge than in some recent public polls. Republicans have seen Tester’s vote share drop just 2 points since August, but they’ve had him down in the last four polls. (Politico)

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch probably got it right, that Hawley is the worst Senator, but there are others. Ted Cruz, right Texas?

Looking where to use your remaining dollars to keep the Senate Blue? Here’s the Roundup’s own list.

Senator Sherrod Brown in Ohio.

https://app.oath.vote/donate?p=niemtzow-brown&ref=PPIAM0N1

Lauren Mucarsel-Powell in Florida, seeking to stop Rick Scott. https://app.oath.vote/donate?p=niemtzow-murcarsel-powell&ref=PPIAM0N1

Angela Alsobrooks, running against Larry Hogan for the Senate from Maryland.

https://app.oath.vote/donate?p=niemtzow-alsobrooks&ref=PPIAM0N1

Representative Elissa Slotkin in Michigan running for the Senate.

https://app.oath.vote/donate?p=niemtzow-slotkin&ref=PPIAM0N1

Colin Allred running for Senate, aiming to beat Ted Cruz.

https://app.oath.vote/donate?p=niemtzow-allred&ref=PPIAM0N1

Finally, Senator Tammy Baldwin who must be returned to the Senate from Wisconsin.

https://app.oath.vote/donate?p=niemtzow-baldwin&ref=PPIAM0N1

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Who else is voting for Kamala?

Your Daily Reminder

Trump is a convicted felon.

On May 30th, he was found guilty on 34 felony counts by the unanimous vote of 12 ordinary citizens.

The Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump was scheduled to be sentenced on July 11th and September 18th. He will now be sentenced on November 26.

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Voting in New York.

Remember, if you have a home upstate or on Long Island, you can register where your vote really counts.You can find all the information about changing your registration before the October 26th deadline at Moveindigo

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