Leland Vittert’s War Notes: Grateful and Thankful

NewsNation Chief Washington Anchor and On Balance host Leland Vittert was a foreign correspondent for four years in Jerusalem. He gives you an early look at tonight’s 7 p.m. ET show. Subscribe to War Notes here.  

“Grateful and thankful.” I learned that saying from my good friend and mentor Thom Sehnert, proprietor at the Smokehouse Market and Annie Gunn’s. They have the best pies, meats and specialty foods in America — it’s too late for Thanksgiving but their Christmas baskets are world-class. 

• Check out their Christmas baskets here.

Goals:  I’ll never be as talented on the grill as Thom, but I try every day to follow his example as a thoughtful and humble leader.

Thom taught me about life and food. Yes, we were both younger then.

Every day I am grateful and thankful to you, our readers and viewers, for your trust and time. There is no greater responsibility.

• And thank you to Katie and Shannon — without each of them War Notes wouldn’t be possible. War Notes is off till Monday. 

Fight Inflation

May your holiday be filled with friends, family, football and good cheer. If the conversation turns to politics, tell them about NewsNation — why you trust us and fight inflation by giving them a subscription to our newsletter at WarNotes.com. IT’S FREE!!  

Speaking of Thanksgiving turkey, be sure to check out my good friend Erick Erickson’s Instagram for some incredible southern recipes and inspiration. 

• And congrats to Erick for another quarter as the #1 show in Atlanta’s radio market — it isn’t easy. 

Now onto the news…

America is Tired

You might sense it already, or figure it out at the dinner table tomorrow, but America is tired.

• Tired of the division.
• Tired of the chaos.
• Tired of the fear.
• Tired of things not working.

Three things: The anger and contempt following Trump’s 2016 victory just isn’t there. Trump’s 2024 win shows it’s cool to be patriotic again.

• Somehow, Americans are liking Trump more every day.
• Democrats (not the elected ones) don’t want to “oppose Trump.”
  • “A CBS News/YouGov poll of 2,232 U.S. adults conducted between November 19 and 22 found that a majority of Democrats aren’t motivated to oppose Trump’s efforts as president, with 10 percent motivated to support him and 46 percent identifying as ‘will not motivate to do anything either way.’”

The obvious: 

• For example: The Lincoln Project’s new ad:
  • “You may not feel thankful this year … So this week, let’s give thanks, and next week, let’s give them Hell.”
  • “We’re still in this fight, and so are you.”
• The Bulwark headlines, “The Bootlicker Cabinet.”
• “Trump’s outrageously bad nominees draw all the headlines. but the routinely bad ones will do plenty of damage too.”
• As we showed you last night, the Hollywood crowd keeps attacking Trump voters.
  • Sharon Stone told the crowd at a film festival in Italy, “My country is in the midst of adolescence. Adolescence is very arrogant. Adolescence thinks it knows everything. Adolescence is naive and ignorant and arrogant. And we are in our ignorant, arrogant adolescence.”
  • Alec Baldwin told the same audience in Italy, “Americans are very uninformed about reality, what’s really going on — climate change, Ukraine, you name it. The biggest topics in the world, Americans have an appetite for a little bit of information.”

Losing the signal: Democrats lost because of that attitude — because they thought fighting against Trump was their calling. 

• Fighting against Trump:
  • Doesn’t lower inflation.
  • Doesn’t fix the border or stop fentanyl.
  • Doesn’t restore common sense to classrooms, schools or sports teams.
  • Doesn’t put Russia’s Putin, Iran’s Ayatollah or China’s Xi in their place.
• If anything, professional Democrats realized that America was and is angry, but mistook their anger and disdain at Trump for what was really America’s anger at Democratic policies. 

Onto something: Trump just assembled the most ideologically diverse cabinet in history — who knows if it’s going to work, but America likes it, and is willing to give it a try.

• Be fair: Trump’s cabinet is an experiment in leadership by populist TV hosts.
  • History — and Erick Erickson on Monday — tells us that populist movements normally fall apart when the divergent factions fight with each other.

Last Gasps of a Lonely President

It would be sad, of course, if it wasn’t so scary. 

• Biden is legacy hunting — and is willing to do anything – no matter how reckless to get apparent “wins” and adulation.
  • Getting his Rose Garden announcement of a “ceasefire,” really a pause, between Hezbollah and Israel required:
    • Blackmailing Israel.
    • And putting the United States in an awful position.

• Allowing Ukraine’s use of long-range American weapons to hit deep into Russia upends 1,000 days of previous policy. 
• Almost daily, there are stories about “Trump proofing” his legacy, including spending like a drunken sailor at the Department of Commerce.
  • Secretary Raimondo’s urgent mission: Leave no cash for Trump.

We covered the “ceasefire” celebrated by President Biden yesterday, but upon reflection, it requires a slightly finer point.

Ground truth: For a lot of reasons, the ceasefire means nothing.

• Israel says they retain the right to start blasting Hezbollah (as they should) for any indiscretion.
• It puts the United States, a.k.a. team Biden, in an impossible situation of policing the Israelis and controlling the Iranians — the past four years proved team Biden completely incapable of either.
• 🪪 It puts the Lebanese army in charge of southern Lebanon — that’s like putting frat boys in charge of ID-ing sorority girls before a tailgate. 

Yet listening to President Biden yesterday, it sounded like he had just brought world peace.

• Simply: Did any world leader watch Biden and think, “Wow, for the next fifty-four days, I need to listen to America?”
• After four years, Joe Biden will leave office totally humiliated.
  • Trump won — the ultimate repudiation.
• But importantly for him — and perhaps more importantly for his wife — after fifty years in government, the man who felt he owned foreign policy leaves office with multiple foreign policy disasters.

YIKES: The video from Vice President Kamala Harris that we played first during the show yesterday is seriously scary — here is her “thank you” video.

Seriously, what staffer said, “Oh yes, let’s put this out.”

• NOTE: This is not a parody or artificial intelligence — but there are some good ones.
  • This is the Vice President of the United States.

• If that person showed up as your Uber driver you would be scared and cancel.
• Too far: Will all the “Biden should resign” folks have a change of heart? 

Let us not forget: Biden is POTUS and she is one heartbeat of an eighty-two-year-old man with memory problems away from the presidency. 

So far this week, Trump has laid low. Maybe the reason we haven’t heard from Trump is because he’s happy to let the world focus on Biden (?).

Tune into “On Balance with Leland Vittert” weeknights at 7/6C on NewsNation. Find your channel here. 

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily of NewsNation.