October 16, 2024

Wednesday, October 16,2024. Annette’s News Roundup.

Kamala is always busy.

Watch the Vice President in Pennsylvania .👇 Bonus - you will also see the clips of Trump that the Vice President played at her rally.

Listen to Kamala 👇 with Charlemagne tha God yesterday. 56 minutes.

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Kamala and Black Male Voters.

Black Votes Matter.

In early October, just before Kamala Harris spoke at the Dort Financial Center, in Flint, Michigan, the N.B.A. Hall of Famer Magic Johnson took the stage to offer a few insights about the candidate and her campaign.

The choice of Johnson, who is a Michigander, to introduce Harris made sense for several reasons. He has been an advocate for people with H.I.V./aids—he has been H.I.V.-positive for more than thirty years—and Harris helped spearhead a Biden Administration effort to end the epidemic by 2030. He is a co-chair of the Athletes for Harris coalition. And, since he officially retired from basketball, in 1996, he has become known nearly as much for his shrewd investments in movie theatres and sports franchises as for his prowess as a point guard.

In Flint, Johnson congratulated the Detroit Tigers on their playoff run, praised Harris for her economic proposals, and then spoke about a specific sliver of the electorate. “Our Black men, we gotta get ’em out to vote,” he said. “Kamala’s opponent promised a lot of things last time to the Black community that he did not deliver on, and we gotta make sure we help Black men understand that.”

Johnson was addressing a concern that has been alternately murmured and shouted in Democratic circles as Election Day nears: that Democrats are vulnerable with one of their most loyal constituencies, African American men.

The statistical stalemate that the two major-party candidates have been locked in has led to a kind of obsessive demographic slicing in an effort to predict the election’s outcome. In the traumatic wake of the 2016 contest, progressives blamed white women, more than fifty per cent of whom, initial reports alleged, had voted for Donald Trump, compared with forty-three per cent for Hillary Clinton. (Subsequent analysis revealed the numbers to be closer to forty-seven per cent for Trump and forty-five for Clinton, but it was still a win.) This year, Black men have come under special scrutiny as the potential weak link.

A headline from a “PBS NewsHour” story in August noted that “Trump Is Gaining Ground with Some Black Men.” The same month, Mother Jones ran a story titled “I Spent a Week with Black MAGA. Here’s What I Learned.” A Times piece led with “Black Men Rally for Kamala Harris and Confront an Elephant in the Room.” Trump himself weighed in, noting, “I seem to be doing very well with Black males.”

In fact, according to a recent A.P.-norc poll, only one in ten Black voters thinks that Trump would “change the country for the better,” and eight out of ten have a somewhat or very negative view of him. Trump won fourteen per cent of Black male voters in 2016, according to Pew, and just twelve per cent in 2020. But there was enough concern among Democrats that the Harris campaign gave a spot on the final night of the Democratic National Convention to the comedian D. L. Hughley to make the least common form of an endorsement speech: an apology.

Hughley confessed that, because Harris had been a prosecutor, he made assumptions about her, and “often repeated them to a lot of people.” But, he added, “I was wrong. And I’m so very glad I was wrong, because, Kamala, you give me hope for the future.” He said that Harris had contacted him to discuss his doubts, and that he had then educated himself about her record as a public servant.

He now describes himself as a “loud advocate” for Harris. The radio host Charlamagne tha God offered a similar conversion narrative. After previously lamenting Harris’s relatively low profile in the Biden Administration, he said during a CNN interview this summer that he’d held “an unrealistic expectation” of her as Vice-President. He cites Harris’s support for mental-health funding and her economic plans as reasons that he now endorses her. This week, he is scheduled to air a special show with Harris as his guest.

Whatever the perceptions, though, Harris is doing better with Black male voters than Joe Biden was earlier this year. According to a recent Pew survey, seventy-three per cent will vote or are leaning toward voting for her. Even in mid-July, before Biden dropped out of the race, Harris’s favorability rating among Black voters in battleground states exceeded his by five points.

A more recent poll from Howard University found that, in swing states, eighty-eight per cent of Black men over fifty and seventy-two per cent of those younger say they will likely vote for her.

Still, Terrance Woodbury, who leads HIT Strategies, a firm that has done extensive polling on this part of the electorate, has pointed out that the issue goes far beyond Harris as a candidate, or—as Barack Obama chided last Thursday, at a campaign field office, before he spoke at a Harris rally in Pittsburgh—the reluctance that some Black men may have to vote for a woman for President. (It’s worth remembering that Black men voted for Clinton in 2016 at a level that surpassed white women by thirty-six points.)

Woodbury notes that “Democrats have experienced erosion—a two-to-three-point erosion amongst Black men—in every election since Barack Obama exited the political stage. This is not just a Kamala Harris problem. This is a Democratic Party problem.”

A higher share of Black men than Black women identify as conservative. The declining number of Black male Democratic voters, like the Party’s diminishing appeal to Latino and working-class white voters, may portend an ongoing realignment. Or it may, as Woodbury contends, simply reflect the Party’s failure to craft messages that appeal to this part of its base.

Accordingly, the Harris campaign has been preparing a package of policy initiatives that relate to the issues—entrepreneurship, homeownership—that consistently emerge in focus groups with Black male voters.

But there is another dynamic that warrants mention: Trump’s bombastic allure skews disproportionately male, and although young voters generally support Democrats, there is some evidence that young men may be a stealth asset for him in November. (Stephen Miller, Trump’s erstwhile immigration czar, recently advised young men that proudly displaying their maga sympathies is the best way to impress women.) And Trump is more popular with Black men under the age of fifty than with any other segment of African Americans.

The election will turn upon a multitude of dynamics, some too subtle to be apparent ahead of time. In Flint, Magic Johnson worried that Black men might not understand that Trump hadn’t kept his promises to the Black community. But comparatively few of them have found the siren song of Trump appealing. Should Kamala Harris not prevail in November, it will not be the fault of any single faction of the electorate.

She will receive a large majority of Black men’s votes. Whether that—and the turnout among the other parts of her coalition—will be enough to win her the Presidency remains to be seen. (New Yorker by Jelani Cobb, a staff writer at The New Yorker and the dean of the Columbia Journalism School).

Harris steps up her efforts to reach Black Men.

Vice President Harris is stepping up her outreach efforts to Black men amid concerns that her support with the voting bloc is softening.

Harris is sitting down with Charlamagne tha God in Detroit on Tuesday and announced a raft of measures Monday aimed at appealing to the group.

Her efforts come amid signs that former President Trump is making inroads with Black men, and amid worries that Black male voters might not turn out at all in November.

“If Harris doesn’t get above 90 percent [with Black men], then she’s in trouble,” said Republican strategist Shermichael Singleton. “She really needs to energize Black voters and figure out a way to get them to turn out, particularly men.”

Concerns over Harris’s softening support with the demographic were underscored last week when former President Obama delivered a stark message to Black voters in Philadelphia, chastising them for “coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses” for not backing Harris and pointing to her gender as a possible factor.

“Because part of it makes me think — and I’m speaking to men directly — part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that,” Obama said.

Other figures within the Democratic Party have also appeared to suggest that some Black men aren’t supporting Harris because she’s a woman.

Actor Ed O’Neill urged voters to “be a man: Vote for a woman” in a recent ad. During the Democratic National Convention in August, actor Wendell Pierce said Black men “have to look at their own inadequacy” if they had an issue voting for a Black woman.

“There are some men who flat-out cannot fathom the fact that you have a woman as the president,” said Chris Gunther, a popular on-air host.

Adding to the sense of urgency for Harris was a poll from The New York Times and Siena College that found warning signs for her with the voting bloc. Whereas 83 percent of Black women said they supported her, only 70 percent of Black men said the same.

The gender gap is particularly pronounced among young Black men, 25 percent of whom said they would support Trump in November over Harris.

“This is really the first election where both parties have had to fight for the Black vote,” Quenton Jordan, vice president of the Black Conservative Federation, told The Hill.
“In previous elections, the Black vote pretty much always went to the Democratic Party in large numbers. Now you have a Republican candidate and Donald Trump, who’s talking to the issues of the Black community, specifically Black men. His message is resonating because he’s talking about issues that families talk about at the dinner table and men talk about in the barber shops.”

Harris seems to be taking these signs seriously and has ramped up her appeals to Black men in recent weeks.

“Black men are no different from anybody else. They expect that you have to earn their vote,” Harris said in a recent interview with Justin Carter of The Shade Room.

She has announced an “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men,” which includes providing 1 million small business loans with up to $20,000 in forgiveness; training and mentorship programs to help open the door to “high-demand” industries; and an initiative focused on addressing health issues disproportionately impacting Black men.

She has also vowed to legalize marijuana and ensure that Black men benefit from its business potential.

Meanwhile, Black leaders who support Harris have stepped up their criticism of Trump’s rhetoric — including Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), one of the most powerful Black men in Congress.

While Clyburn said he doesn’t blame Trump for trying to build support among Black voters, he said he “pities” those who refuse to look back on his record of controversial — and sometimes racist — comments.

“Donald Trump has absolutely no respect for people of color,” Clyburn said. “He has demonstrated that time and time again. He did that with those five young men of color accused of a crime they did not commit, and he demonstrated what he thought about them, calling for the death penalty to be reinstated, spending his own money to take out a full page ad in The New York Times to do that. That is disrespectful. Any Black person who refuses to recognize that, I pity that person.”

“There are some people who [would] rather have favor from the master than to be free from the master, and if that’s your problem, there’s not much I can do about that,” he added.

Still, advocates acknowledge that there is work that needs to be done — by both parties — when it comes to building support with Black men.

“Because there’s a lack of trust in the political infrastructure and candidates to do what they say they’re going to do on behalf of Black men, we see brothers really choosing between the couch or the candidate, not between Republicans and Democrats,” said Mondale Robinson, founder of the Black Male Voter Project.

Part of the problem, Robinson said, is that neither campaign has spent time speaking directly to Black men.

“Both campaigns are doing a horrible job at reaching Black men. The efforts have been haphazard at best,” Robinson said. “This demographic has seen themselves be victims of politicians and political systems in a way that no other demographic in America can.”

Robinson pointed to the issues of police brutality, in which Black men are killed by police officers at higher rates than other demographics. Black men also have some of the worst health care outcomes. And studies have shown they have a harder time escaping poverty than their white counterparts.

Observers say candidates often speak to Black men only on issues of criminal justice.

“Somehow we get pegged with that as if we’re a one-legged stool or one-trick ponies,” said Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist. “The fact of the matter is we care about the economy. We care about health care. We care about education. We care about an environment that’s cleaner and greener and better than we found it. We care about all the things that every other constituency cares about.”
Black men have consistently felt unheard when they voice these concerns, observers say. As such, Democrats have been slowly losing Black voter support for years, with Republicans steadily making gains.

Republicans, meanwhile, argue that Trump’s tough messaging resonates with the voting bloc.

“I think some of these younger Black men look at Trump and they think, ‘Well, hey, I think he’s going to do better on the economic front. I think he’s going to be stronger on immigration,’” Singleton said. “When Trump comes out and says, ‘If Iran does this, we’re going to bomb the hell out of them,’ a lot of guys like that because a lot of guys say ‘this is what we need in a leader. We need someone who’s not going to take any crap from anybody.’”

What the election cycle has undeniably shown, said Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), is that Black men are not a monolith.

“We don’t all think alike. We don’t all vote 100 percent alike, nor should we. We have the right to have a political perspective and to hold anyone running for any office accountable,” Horsford, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), told The Hill’s “The Switch Up” podcast.

Still, Horsford — and a majority of the CBC — are working to elect Harris.

“I think it’s time to turn the page, and I’m going to do everything that I can to make sure that Black men know the record and when they know the record, and the choices between the two options — one that’s about moving us forward or one that wants to take us back — I believe that Black men, as all Black voters, will choose Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on their ballot,” Horsford said. (The Hill).

Harris peppered with questions by Charlamagne tha God’s audience.

Vice President Harris was peppered with questions Tuesday about her plan for Black Americans from radio host Charlamagne tha God and his listeners in an interview that’s part of a late-campaign media blitz before Election Day.

The interview began with Charlamagne asking Harris to respond to criticism about the quality of her responses to questions and the notion that she is repetitive, which she characterized as “discipline.”

She also addressed “the weight of the moment” in her role running for president against Trump.
“I feel an extraordinary weight of responsibility right now to do everything I can,” Harris said. “When I go to bed at night, in addition to my prayers, I will ask, ‘Have I done everything I could do today?’”

“This is a margin-of-error race. It’s tight,” she added. “But I’m going to win. I’m going to win.”
Throughout the interview, Harris shared her position on topics such as reparations — which she said she supports studying — building up Black homeownership and the opportunity to grow generational wealth.

The interview was an opportunity for Harris to speak directly to Black voters, a group that polls show overwhelmingly support her over Trump. But some of the interview questions also revealed some disenchantment about voting and whether the candidate could fulfill the promises she’s making on the campaign trail.

At one point, Charlamagne pointed out that Harris is facing the issue of misinformation in this year’s election, particularly on her history as a prosecutor.

“One of the biggest pieces of misinformation, one of the biggest allegations against you, is that you targeted and locked up thousands of Black men in San Francisco for weed,” Charlamagne said. “Some say you did it to boost your career. Some say you did it out of pure hate for Black men. Please tell us the facts.”

Harris immediately denied the allegations and instead said she was “the most progressive prosecutor” in California. She then pledged to work to decriminalize marijuana if elected president.
“I know exactly how those laws have been used to disproportionately impact certain populations, and specifically Black men,” Harris said. (The Hill).

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The New York Race That Could Tip the House -The Atlantic

The state is home to some of the country’s most vulnerable Republicans, but one key district is proving tough for Democrats to flip.

A rainy Saturday late last month, Mondaire Jones was doing his best to convince a crowd of supporters that his campaign was going great. “We’ve got so much momentum in this race,” Jones said. “It has been an incredible week.”

It was a tough sell—not only for the dozens of Democrats listening to Jones in Bedford, New York, but also for the many others who have spent millions of dollars to help him defeat a first-term Republican, Representative Mike Lawler, and win back a district he gave up two years ago. The suburbs surrounding New York City have become a central battleground in the fight for Congress, and Jones’s race against Lawler is among the most competitive in the country—one that could determine which party controls the House next year.

Democrats need a net gain of four seats to win the majority, and New York has four of the country’s most vulnerable Republicans, who are all newly representing districts that Joe Biden carried easily in 2020. Yet the traditionally blue bastion is proving to be rough terrain for Democratic candidates, who must distance themselves from the deeply unpopular Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City’s recently indicted mayor, Eric Adams.

Jones’s curious claim to momentum was based on a poll his campaign released that had him trailing Lawler by three points—not exactly a strong showing in a district that has 80,000 more Democrats than Republicans.

As for his incredible week: It began with him apologizing to Hochul for telling a reporter that he didn’t want his state’s governor to be “some, like, little bitch.” Jones said he was not referring to Hochul and told me that his comments were “taken out of context.” (Jones’s prospects did brighten the following week, when it was Lawler’s turn to apologize after The New York Times uncovered photos of the Republican wearing blackface in college as part of a Michael Jackson Halloween costume.)

Democrats are hoping that the enthusiasm Kamala Harris’s campaign has generated will help them reverse the gains Republicans made in New York in 2022. Hochul’s victory that year was so underwhelming—she won by fewer than seven points, a margin that her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, doubled, tripled, and quadrupled in his three elections—that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi blamed her performance for costing Democrats the House.

Pelosi’s successor as Democratic leader, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, has prioritized the purple districts in his home state as he seeks to become the nation’s first Black speaker. But Democrats’ prospects in New York aren’t looking much better than they did two years ago. Hochul’s approval ratings have sunk to new lows, and the federal corruption charges against Adams—who runs the city where many of Jones’s would-be constituents work—won’t help. Polls show Harris beating Donald Trump by fewer than 15 points statewide; in 2020, Biden won by 23.

Lawler has hammered Jones on the same issues that helped get him elected two years ago—the high cost of living and the influx of migrants straining local government resources—while appealing to the district’s large Jewish community by championing Israel and criticizing pro-Palestinian campus protesters. He’s supporting Trump for president while vowing to stand up to him—at least more than most Republicans have. (He’s refused, for example, to parrot the former president’s 2020 election lies.) “I’m not going to be bullied by anybody,” Lawler told me.

Key to the Democrats’ strategy against Lawler—as with many Republicans—is abortion. Party strategists believe that after the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, GOP candidates fared better in blue states such as New York and California because voters there did not see a legitimate threat to abortion rights. Hoping to spur greater turnout, state Democrats have placed a measure on the ballot this year that would further enshrine abortion rights into New York law, and they’re warning that victories by Lawler and other swing-district Republicans could empower the GOP to enact a national ban. “I think people see the threat. They’re taking it much more seriously,” says Jann Mirchandani, the local Democratic chair in Yorktown, a closely divided town in New York’s Hudson Valley. But she wasn’t sure if Lawler could be beaten. “It’s going to be tight.”

ones’s first stint in Congress was cut short, in part, by an electoral game of musical chairs. Because New York’s population growth had flatlined, the state lost a seat in 2022, two years after his election. In response, a newly vulnerable senior Democrat, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, decided to run in Jones’s district, so the freshman moved to Brooklyn in hopes of holding on to office there. He didn’t make it out of the primary, and then a few months later, Lawler beat Maloney by only about 1,800 votes.

To try to reclaim the seat he once held, Jones is shedding some of his past progressivism. He’s renounced his support for defunding the police and no longer champions Medicare for All or the Green New Deal. His biggest break with the left came in June, when he endorsed George Latimer, the primary opponent of Jones’s former colleague, Representative Jamaal Bowman, a member of the left-wing “Squad,” because of Bowman’s criticism of Israel after October 7. In retaliation, the progressives’ campaign PAC rescinded its endorsement of Jones. When I asked him whether he would try to rejoin the Congressional Progressive Caucus if he won in November—he was a member of the group during his first go-round in the House—he said he didn’t know. But he told me he was planning to join the more moderate and business-friendly New Democrat Coalition. Do you still identify as a progressive? I asked. “I am a pragmatic, pro-Israel progressive.”

Jones’s rift with the left has hurt him in other ways as well. Lawler and Jones are the only candidates actively campaigning in their district, but they won’t be the only people on the November ballot. A relative unknown named Anthony Frascone stunned Democrats by beating out Jones for the nomination of the left-leaning Working Families Party after earning just 287 votes.

Democrats say they were the victims of a dirty trick by the GOP, pointing to two seeming coincidences. Frascone, a former registered Republican, has ties to powerful conservatives in the district, including his longtime lawyer, who serves as a county chair. And, as Gothamist reported, nearly 200 voters registered with the party in conservative Rockland County just days before the deadline. Few residents are eligible to vote in the WFP primary, which typically rubber-stamps the Democratic candidate. So when Frascone got on the ballot at the last minute, the Jones campaign didn’t have many supporters it could even attempt to turn out.

If it was a ploy by Republicans, it worked brilliantly. In a close race, Frascone might siphon enough votes from Jones for Lawler to win. “The combination of the surprise primary and us having a very public fracture with Mondaire created a perfect storm,” Ana María Archila, a co-director of the New York Working Families Party, told me.

Now the WFP has the awkward task of telling supporters not to vote for its nominee. Meanwhile, state Democrats are suing to get Frascone off the ballot, and the Jones campaign is devoting time and money to ensuring that a ghost candidate won’t cost his party a crucial House seat. A poll released yesterday by Emerson College found Lawler ahead of Jones, 45–44, and Frascone taking 3 percent of the vote, suggesting that he could play the role of spoiler.

Lawler told me he had nothing to do with Frascone’s candidacy. “He has no ties to me,” he said. “If Mondaire couldn’t win a Working Families Party primary with 500 voters, that’s on him.”

Democrats appear to be in a stronger position in other New York swing districts. Representative Brandon Williams, a first-term Republican, is seen as a slight underdog to retain his seat around Syracuse after Democrats redrew his district in 2022. In a Long Island district that Biden carried by double digits, the Democrat Laura Gillen’s campaign got a boost when The New York Times reported that her opponent, Representative Anthony D’Esposito, had given congressional jobs to both his lover and the daughter of the woman he was cheating on. Farther upstate, in New York’s Nineteenth District, which is currently the most expensive House race in the country, an early-September poll by a Republican-leaning firm found that the GOP incumbent, Representative Marc Molinaro, was three points behind his Democratic challenger, with a larger group of voters undecided.

Elsewhere on Long Island, Representative Tom Suozzi is favored to win again after his special-election victory in February, when he flipped a GOP-held seat by talking tough on the border and assailing Republicans for blocking a bipartisan immigration bill at Trump’s behest—a message that Democrats from Harris on down are adopting this fall.

But Suozzi also benefited from his being the only race on the ballot; Democrats bused in canvassers from across the New York metropolitan area to knock on doors for his campaign, and he won by nearly eight points. Now the same organizations that powered Suozzi’s win are trying to convince party activists and volunteers that their local elections are just as important as the one for the White House. “One of those races gets more attention than the other, but it turns out that Kamala Harris is going to need a Democratic Congress,” Jones told the supporters gathered at the event I attended in Bedford.

I met two Democrats there who said they would vote for Jones but not canvass for him. One of them, Joe Simonetti, said he was still “deeply, deeply, deeply disappointed” by Jones’s effort to unseat a Black progressive in Bowman. “I just can’t get out there with full-throated support,” Simonetti, a retired social worker, said. Roger Savitt, a 70-year-old retiree and former Republican, told me that he was hoping to get on a bus to Pennsylvania to volunteer for Harris for a day. Why not knock on doors for Jones too? I asked. Savitt had nothing against Jones, he said, but “I have a less strong view of the congressional race.”

Indeed, part of Jones’s dilemma is that some Democrats in the district have a grudging admiration for Lawler. “Lawler’s done a halfway-decent job,” Rocco Pozzi, a Democratic commissioner in Westchester County, told me. “But we need to get the majority back.” A former political consultant, Lawler is visible both in the community and on cable news, where he tries to position himself as a reasonable voice amid the warring factions in Congress. “You have seen him on Morning Joe, where he never gets asked tough questions,” Jones complained to the Bedford crowd at one point.

As their party embraced Trump, moderate Republicans in blue states have occasionally found a receptive audience among Democrats looking to reward politicians willing to criticize their own party. In Vermont, the Republican Phil Scott has for years been among the nation’s most popular governors. Massachusetts twice elected the moderate Republican Charlie Baker as governor, and in Maine, Senator Susan Collins won reelection in 2020 even as Biden easily carried the state.

Lawler is eyeing that same path to statewide office in New York; if he wins reelection, he told me, he might run for governor against Hochul in 2026. “It’s certainly something I’ll look at,” Lawler said.

Yet despite his image, Lawler is more conservative than the Republicans who have demonstrated cross-party appeal in nearby Democratic strongholds. Although he has vowed to vote against a national abortion ban, he opposes the procedure except in cases of rape or incest and told me he would not vote with Democrats to restore Roe v. Wade. Lawler also said he’d vote against the bipartisan immigration bill that Harris has promised to pass if elected.

Those positions offer openings for Jones, who needs the Democrats that still dominate the district to recognize the importance of his race to the national balance of power. Lawler isn’t making it easy for him. A couple days after Jones’s rally in Bedford, I saw Lawler speak a few miles northwest in Yorktown at a commemoration of the October 7 attacks. The event wasn’t partisan, and Lawler spoke for only a few minutes, but attendees in the largely Jewish audience came away impressed.

Nancy Anton, a 68-year-old retired teacher and artist, said she had “definitely” been planning to vote for Jones before she came, but now she was leaning the other way. She supports Harris for president and wants Jeffries to be speaker, she told me, but she might vote for Lawler anyway. “I’m hoping in these other districts the Democrats win so we retake the House,” Anton said. I asked her if she’d have any regrets come November if a Lawler victory allowed Republicans to retain the majority. “Oh yes,” she replied. “That’s a terrifying thought.” (Russell Berman, The Atlantic).

To repeat, “Democrats need a net gain of four seats to win the majority [and take back the House] and New York has four of the country’s most vulnerable Republicans, who are all newly representing districts that Joe Biden carried easily in 2020.”

The Jones/Lawler race may well determine who wins the House.

Why? Yes, we want the House to support President Harris or, heaven help us, stop Trump if he reclaims the White House.

But just as important is this - The House is sworn in before the Presidency is certified. If we have the House, we will certify the Presidency. If MAGA wins the House, they may not.

1. The Jones campaign needs volunteers in Nyack and Rockland county to get out the vote. There are 80,000 more Democrats than Republicans in this District.

Use this link to sign up to volunteer.👇

Volunteer Opportunities, Events, and Petitions Near Me · Mondaire For Congress on Mobilize

Mondaire is running to return to Congress to finish the work he started to lower costs for Lower Hudson Valley residents, defend our democracy, raise wages, and stop Republicans from banning abortion.

1. Use this link to donate. 👇 NY Flip the House. https://app.oath.vote/donate?p=an-nyfh&ref=PPIAM0N1

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Trump is always crazy.

Tuesday in Pennsylvania.

Wednesday at the Economic Club of Chicago, broadcast on Bloomberg Politics.

From President Biden.

Trump Crumbles When Pressed on Economic Policy in Tense Interview

The former president attempted to "weave" his way through an interview with Bloomberg News, but couldn't escape his own policy black hole.

Donald Trump during an interview with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait in Chicago, Illinois, on Oct. 15, 2024

Donald Trump continued his pre-election economic event tour on Tuesday with a lengthy interview with Bloomberg at the Economic Club of Chicago. It was a total mess.

Bloomberg Editor-In-Chief John Micklethwait did not take it easy on Trump, and it quickly became clear that the former president has no conception of the mechanics of or the potential ramifications of the economic platform he’s running on. Bluntly, the former president was incoherent when pressed with real questions about his policies.

Micklethwait spent most of the interview attempting to break Trump out of what the former president repeatedly referred to as “the weave,” his term for his rambling digressions — with ever-decreasing intelligibility — and general inability to focus on a given topic for more than a few seconds during his rallies and interviews.

Micklethwait didn’t weave along with Trump, however, repeatedly working to bring him back on topic and answer the actual questions. The grilling exposed Trump’s total cluelessness with regard to his own economic policy, and led Trump to attack Micklethwait as biased.

Here are the most notable moments from the most rigorous round of policy questioning Trump has been subjected to in recent memory.

Trump gets schooled on tariffs

The central pillar of Trump’s economic plan is widespread tariffs on all imported goods, with penalties appearing to increase depending on how much he dislikes the country. Economists have warned that such a policy could have devastating effects on American consumers, who would be saddled with increased costs for all imported goods.

When questioned about the specifics of his plan, and if he was aware of its pitfalls, Trump seemed ignorant of basic economic principles, insisting that other countries, not American consumers, would pay for the tariffs.

Micklethwait tried to explain the actual impact. “Three-trillion worth of imports and you will add tariffs to every single one of them, and push up the cost for all of these people to buy foreign goods,” he said. “That is just simple mathematics.”

Trump countered that he was “always good at mathematics,” and that high tariffs — and thus costs — would force companies to move production into the United States.

“That will take many, many, many years,” Micklethwait said, to which Trump replied that high enough penalties would make the move immediate as if companies could simply wand wave production plants, orchards, wineries, factories, and the like into existence.

The former president also insisted that his tariff proposal would not result in the loss of jobs that are dependent on trade, because companies that moved to the U.S. would not be subject to the tax. “All you have to do is build your plant in the United States and you don’t have any tariffs,” he said.

Trump gets frustrated and bashes the interviewer
Micklethwait’s attempts to keep Trump on topic earned him no grace from the former president, who hates few things more than being contradicted.

When Micklethwait asked Trump to address a report by The Wall Street Journal estimating that his economic proposals would raise the national debt by upwards of $7 trillion, the former president fell back on his standard playbook: bashing the interviewer.

“What does The Wall Street Journal know? They’ve been wrong about everything, and so have you by the way, you’ve been wrong,” Trump replied, crossing his arms and curling into his seat.

“You’ve been wrong all your life on this stuff,” he added.

Trump responds to a question about Google by ranting about voting in Virginia

One theme of the interview was Trump totally avoiding giving straight answers to the questions Micklethwait asked him. The most egregious example came when Micklethwait asked Trump if he believes the Justice Department should break up Google.

Trump responded by sighing and ranting about Virginia’s voter rolls. “The question is about Google, President Trump,” Micklethwait replied. Trump then went on a spiel about how Google is unfair to him and doesn’t show users any positive stories about him.

Trump claims immigrants would kill an audience member when asked how deportations will affect the job market

When Micklethwait noted that Trump’s plan to deport 11 million undocumented workers would have a large impact on the American economy — as many undocumented migrants participate in the labor force — Trump immediately pivoted to crime.

“It came out last week that 125,000 people are horrible criminals at the highest level,” Trump said and repeated a false claim that more than 13,000 undocumented migrants convicted of murder had been released into the country by the Biden administration. “We’ve had the best numbers but now we have the worst numbers and here is the problem, we have some of the worst criminals in the world coming in,” he added.

“The issue I asked you about was the idea if you reduce immigration — every economist will tell you — if you have fewer people, there is a smaller economy,” Micklethwait interjected after Trump ranted about murderous migrants for several minutes. Trump continued and at one point singled out a member of the audience, calling her a “beautiful woman.”

“They will look at you — down [there] a beautiful woman — they’ll look at you and they will kill you,” he said.

An exasperated Micklethwait noted that the crime rate has actually gone down under Biden.

Trump is unable to say how he’d help small businesses

Trump’s tariff proposal could be a disaster for small businesses that rely on imports. Micklethwait noted that when Trump imposed a tariff on Chinese imports while he was in office — one that is smaller that what he is proposing for a second term — he helped Apple deal with the ramifications, giving them a deal. Micklethwait then asked Trump how he would help companies that aren’t so big. Trump was unable to provide a response, repeatedly bringing up how he helped Apple despite Micklethwait’s efforts to get him to address small businesses.

Trump doesn’t deny he’s been talking to Putin since he left office

Journalist Bob Woodward reports in his new book War that Trump has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin multiple times since leaving office. Trump’s team denied this, but Trump declined to do so himself on Tuesday, telling Micklethwait that he won’t comment on it, but that if he did talk to Putin it would “be a smart thing.”

Trump mocks autoworkers

Trump argued that his tariffs will lead Mercedes-Benz to start building in the U.S., arguing that now they build everything in Germany and their cars are only assembled in the U.S. He doesn’t seem to have much respect for the autoworkers at these “assembly” plants. “They take them out of a box and they assemble them,” Trump said. “We could have a child do it.”

Trump says Jan. 6 riot was filled with “love and peace.”

Trump tried yet again to rewrite history about Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. He said on Tuesday that it was a “peaceful transfer of power,” accused Micklethwait of being biased against him for asking the questions, and reiterated that he believes the 2020 election was “crooked.”

The former president claimed that his speaking style was “called the weave” and that “it’s all these different things happening.”

OK then.(Rolling Stone)

One more thing. Or two.

Were Trump’s consiglieres watching the Bloomberg interview? Did it lead Miller and Cheung to post these👇 to lift dear Leader’s spirits?

Followed by deranged Trump himself.

Chris Wallace on Trump.

Pete Buttigieg on Trump.

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Jimmy Carter voted yesterday. Have you voted yet?

Early voting began in Georgia yesterday. The former President made his goal. He voted for Kamala Harris.

Has early voting either in person or by mail begun in your state? Have you voted yet? The sooner you vote the better.

Once you vote, the Harris campaign can remove you off their get out the voter list. They can use money and people resources to deliver other messages and voters.

If you tell others when you vote early, that often inspires them to vote early too. Your voting circle is amplified. Go get ‘em! Vote as soon as you can.

Now back to Plains, Georgia! 👇

Jimmy Carter Achieves His Goal, Lives Long Enough to Vote for Kamala Harris - MeidasTouch News

Early voting [began yesterday] in Georgia.

Two months ago, Jason Carter, grandson of former president Jimmy Carter, reported to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the aging president had told his family he wanted to live long enough to cast his vote for Kamala Harris. Carter turned 100 on October 1st, making him the oldest former U.S. president in American history.

Early voting begins in Carter's home state of Georgia on Tuesday, meaning Carter has achieved his goal and made it long enough to vote for Vice President Harris.

Jason Carter told the Journal-Constitution in August that the former president is "more alert and interested in politics and the war in Gaza." In June, Jason told reporters that Carter was no longer awake every day, and was "experiencing the world as best he can as he continues through this process." The former president voted in the Georgia primary in May.

Carter has been in hospice care since February of 2023 after receiving treatment for metastatic brain cancer. Carter's wife of 77 years, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter passed away in November.

Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts both in office and out to promote human rights and resolve conflicts around the world. (Medias News)

One more thing. about voting in Georgia yesterday.

From Greg Bluestein, NBC News.

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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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Borowitz sees what we see.

# New York Times Admits Sean Hannity Has Been Editor-in-Chief for Past Four Years

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/new-york-times-admits-sean-hannity?r=1dh16&utm_medium=email

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