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.
State of play:
- 15 days to the election
- Decision Desk HQ average: Kamala Harris +1.2, as of around noon ET today. Click here to see the latest numbers.
- Polymarket betting odds: 62.5 to 37.5 in favor of Trump.
What Is She Doing?!
After campaign events today, Vice President Kamala Harris heads back to D.C. for a day of meetings and an interview with NBC before her CNN town hall Wednesday.
- That sounds like the schedule of a candidate planning to win by Bill Clinton 1996 margins.
- Clinton beat Bob Dole 49.2 to 40.7 in the popular vote and 379 to 159 in the Electoral College …
- Except Clinton ran like he was 10 points down — you can actually read Clinton’s barnstorming schedule from October of 1996 here.
- For political nerds like me, it’s kind of fun.
- The pace and sheer number of events are wild.
- What is Harris doing? For a woman who keeps calling herself the underdog, she’s acting like a statewide Democrat running in the California general election.
- Thought bubble: Again, this is just another metric that shows top Democrats don’t believe their own warnings about Donald Trump’s “threats to democracy.”
- Or maybe there is something else going on — Harris’ people have quickly figured out what we’ve told you for months:
- She is a terrible candidate.
- The intense media fawning has her numbers going down.
- There is no amount of training, coaching or advertising that can fix the problem.
- New strategy: Send her to the basement and ring the alarms about Trump
This shouldn’t come as a surprise from Erick Erickson’s newsletter, “Show Notes:”
- “In February of 2023, Jonathan Martin of Politico reported how senior Democrats lamented Kamala Harris, despite all efforts, was not ready for prime time. In September of 2023, New York magazine openly called for Biden to drop Harris. In February of 2024, Jonathan Martin insisted that, despite Republican claims to the contrary, there was no way Democrats would ditch Biden, particularly for Harris.”
And an Issue & Insights report lays out Harris’ problem connecting with voters.
Triggered: For some reason, the Trump McDonald’s stunt hit a raw nerve with Democrats and The New York Times, which wrote, “But Mr. Trump’s seeding of doubts about Ms. Harris’s story, while insidious and outside the lines of traditional fair play in politics, advances his goal of portraying Ms. Harris as a fraud.”
- Hottest take: Batya Ungar-Sargon explains why it will backfire: “Trump has a genius for exposing the lowest qualities of his enemies. By proudly putting on a McDonalds apron, he got them to spend 24 hours deriding one of the most common jobs for low income Americans, revealing once again their utter contempt for the working class.”
- Politico’s Playbook newsletter quotes Trump, saying, “‘I’ve now worked for 15 minutes more than Kamala,’ Trump told reporters from the drive-thru window, per the Philadelphia Inquirer. In fact, as WaPo notes, the whole event was semi-staged: Nobody actually ordered anything, instead receiving whatever he gave them. He worked the fryer for five minutes. And on actual policy substance, Trump dodged a minimum wage question.”
- If only Politico covered every photo-op this way.
Only option: Democrats can only now raise the stakes higher … all the above explains the new focus on Trump’s “threat to democracy.”
- Yet, for all the warnings, Harris still wants to underpay for the presidency by remaining totally focused on pushing a liberal agenda.
- According to our campaign reporter Jackie Koppell on the trail with Harris, Harris told a “country over party” town hall in suburban Philadelphia with mostly white independent women:
- “Needless to say, mine will not be a continuation of the Biden administration. I bring to it my own ideas, my own experiences, but it is also about moving past what, frankly, I think, has been the last decade of the American discourse being influenced by Donald Trump in a way that has had the effect of suggesting we as Americans should point the finger at one another.”
- Does Harris want us to forget she and her boss endlessly calling 50% of the country un-American and ultra-MAGA racists for supporting Trump or any other Republican?!
- “Needless to say” – it’s actually very in need of saying …
- Tim Walz on “The View” couldn’t figure out a good answer
- Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro kept dodging when asked on “Meet the Press” how Harris would be different from President Biden.
Our buddy Niall Stanage points out the cognitive dissonance in bringing Liz Cheney in to campaign in Michigan — home of America’s largest Arab population.
Musk Warning(?)
Who is using who? Or is it whom? Grammar isn’t my thing, but the Elon Musk and Donald Trump relationship is one that should concern us all.
- As should the George and Alex Soros relationship with Democratic politicians.
- BUT — Soros makes his policy goals quite clear, and he has been consistent over decades.
- It’s less so with Trump and Musk.
- Watch tonight: We’ll ask Bill O’Reilly why the world’s richest man wants to elect Trump.
- What does Musk get out of it or in return?
- Is it really good for everyday Americans that Musk has such influence?
Flip side: For the people ringing the alarm bells over Trump’s coming “weaponization” of the government to go after his political enemies, Democrats now publicly call for the same thing.
- Governor Shapiro wants “law enforcement” to look into Elon Musk giving away $1 million checks to those who signed his petition supporting the Constitution.
- Fair point: It does seem like many things Musk does — a little too far — but the law on this is murky.
- But seriously, aren’t Shapiro’s demands exactly what Democrats warn Trump will do in his pursuit to end the republic?
Treason!!
America’s intelligence on the coming Israeli strike against Iran ended up on accounts linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
- It’s a stunning security breach but also telling of the Iranian apologists and friends inside the Biden administration.
- A must-read from The Free Beacon says, “The two documents—compiled by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency over the past several weeks—expose how Israel is preparing for the attack, including the types of aircraft and munitions that are expected to be used. They were published by the Middle East Spectator, a little-known outlet that is known to disseminate propaganda from Tehran.”
- After all, what better way to get Israel to stand down (as Biden and Harris have demanded) than by leaking Israel’s plans?
- A letter from Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., lays out the problems with one senior Biden national security official’s questioned loyalties
- But there are more, of course.
- The case of Rob Malley comes to mind.
- And perhaps most concerning, Maher Bitar.
- But there are more, of course.
Thought bubble: There is now a massive investigation to find the leaker — perhaps it will be led by the same people who leaked the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision.
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.