Benjamin Parker/The Bulwark:
Harris vs. the Hecklers
Kamala Harris got heckled in the middle of a speech in Detroit Wednesday by pro-Palestinian protesters shouting, “Kamala, Kamala, you can’t hide. We won’t vote for genocide.”
If you haven’t seen the video of Harris’s reaction, watch this short clip.
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It looked like a Sister Souljah moment, even if she never actually rebutted the protesters.
I would have preferred if Harris had told the protesters she disagrees with them on the substance of genocide allegations. I would also not complain if the person who might soon inhabit the world’s most powerful office, with her finger on the proverbial nuclear button, would say a little more about how she sees America’s place in the world.
But as a matter of pure electoral politics, she did what she needed to do to defuse allegations that she’s a radical leftist and to maximize her coalition.
She handled them deftly in Arizona last night as well, with more empathy but same result. To normies, she’s listening but in control. That’s exactly what you expect from a president.
StarTribune:
Fact check: National Guard records show Vance’s claim that Walz bailed as his unit deployed is false
GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance claims that the Minnesota governor and Democratic vice presidential candidate bailed as his unit headed to Iraq, but Walz retired before his unit was called up.
The timeline is clear: Walz’s congressional campaign issued a statement in March 2005 saying he still planned to run despite a possible mobilization of Minnesota National Guard soldiers to Iraq. Walz submitted his Guard retirement papers in May 2005. The unit’s first call-up notice came in July 2005, and the regiment deployed in March 2006.
Bess Levin/Vanity Fair:
Trump Spews Lies, Disparages Harris’s Intelligence, Insults Jews, and Rambles About “Insane Asylums” in Unhinged Press Conference
He did little to quell reports that he is melting down over Harris’s poll numbers.
Amidst reports that he has become unglued by having to compete with Kamala Harris for the presidency, Donald Trump held a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday. And if the goal was to reassure people that (1) he is not at all freaked out by the vice president’s rising poll numbers and (2) he is the best candidate for the White House, he was not exactly successful!
Trump repeatedly insulted Harris’s intelligence, calling her “barely competent,” saying that she “can't do a news conference” because “she’s not smart enough,” and claiming that she’s “not as smart” as Joe Biden. (As a reminder, Trump thinks there were airports during the Revolutionary War and that it’s safe to inject bleach into the body; he’s also been described as an idiot by numerous people who worked for him.)
Phillips P O’Brien/”Phillips’s Newsletter” on Substack:
The Ukrainian Kursk Offensive
What We Probably Know, What We Dont Know, What Matters Going Forward
What We Probably Know (1)
I use “Probably” very clearly because the evidence we have comes from a range of unofficial sources—and much of it can be challenged and much of it relies on telegram claims. With that proviso, I think we can say the following.
Three days ago the Ukrainians started what is best termed a “Limited Offensive”. What do I mean by that? Well its a phrase that Mykola Bielieskov and I thought worked best when we recorded our podcast yesterday (which will hopefully be ready for release soon. This is definitely not just a “raid” as many of the geniuses in the analytic community instantly decided. Nor can it be called a full offensive, as its not supposed to go for Moscow for instance—and we don’t even know how far into Kursk Oblast the operation is intended to reach.
However it is an offensive with certain limited objectives that aims to seize (for an indefinite amount of time) Russian land and take the initiative away from Russian forces in the field—dictating a response by the Russian side. So it does seem safe to call this a Limited Offensive.
An evocative view of Trump’s press conference disaster:
Philip Bump/Washington Post:
The other problem with Donald Trump’s helicopter ride story
At his news conference Thursday, the former president apparently invented the sort of tale for which he once excoriated a hated member of the news media.
One reason, of course, is that Trump is not now and has not ever been terribly worried about the product of his riffing. Sure, he almost invariably gets himself into trouble by disgorging false claims or toxic disparagements, but it’s easy enough to bury those with more disgorgement. It is the way; it has always been the way.
But this habit now unfolds in an environment where, thanks in part to Trump’s own energetic efforts, Americans are attuned to signs of mental decline or confusion. A story about, say, a near-deadly helicopter ride with a famous California politician — as Trump presented on Thursday — isn’t as easily dismissed as it might have been. Is this Trump making stuff up? Or is this Trump confusing different parts of different stories? Trump has a cover that President Joe Biden never did: that history of bizarre disgorgements.
David Rothkopf/”Need to Know” on Substack:
Kamala and the World
The Promise of a Harris Presidency Has Forced Putin, Netanyahu and Others to Rethink Their Plans
So, there you are, sitting at your long table in the Kremlin, waiting for your food taster to make sure your favorite dinner of borscht and elk testicles has not been poisoned by one of the millions of Russians who hate you, and you get the latest polling data from the United States. You see that Kamala Harris has opened up a lead on Donald Trump. You read the intelligence report and see that Trump is despondent, losing his grip, rambling uncontrollably when he speaks to the press but largely hiding out in that garish house of his, so over-the-top even your oligarch friends see it as a kind of cathedral of cheese.
“Shit!”, you think. “дерьмо!” “дерьмо, дерьмо, дерьмо!!!”
Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger/The Bulwark:
The Same Old Tired Shtick
Remember when Donald Trump had the capacity to shock?
It’s a funny thing. Trump can still scandalize the viewer with his cruelty, his pettiness, and his malice. More often these days, though, he merely confuses and bores. The did-he-really-just-say-that transgressiveness that made him so electric a decade ago is long since played out. All that’s left is an old man, his acolytes, and his grievances.
That’s not to say Trump can’t win, and it’s certainly not to say he can’t do a ton of damage if he does. Yet, watching him wallow around yesterday, it was hard to avoid feeling a growing suspicion: Hey, you never know. Maybe Harris can crush this guy.
Jamelle Bouie/New York Times:
The Real Reason Trump and Vance Hate Being Called ‘Weird’
“Weird” doesn’t sound like much. But of all the attacks Democrats have levied against Republicans since Trump came down that escalator, this one appears to hit the hardest. Republican politicians seem taken aback by the idea that they’re outside the mainstream, by the charge that their interests and priorities are alienating to the average American.
...
Through all of this, Republicans still insist that they’re the party of normalcy. This is why they can’t quite deal with the charge that they’re weird. There’s a reason for this. For years, in the American political imagination, Republicans were the normal party and Democrats were the party of weirdness.
This was one of the major themes of the 1972 presidential election, when the Republican Party of Richard Nixon framed itself as the party of normalcy and of faith in America as it is. “It has become fashionable in recent years to point up what is wrong with what is called the American system,” Nixon declared at the Republican National Convention in Miami. “The critics contend it is so unfair, so corrupt, so unjust that we should tear it down and substitute something else in its place. I totally disagree. I believe in the American system.”
Ronald Brownstein/The Atlantic:
What the Convention Could Do for Kamala Harris
Americans just don’t know the Democratic nominee’s story.
The Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which starts on August 19, now offers Harris her next opportunity to sharpen her image before Republicans do. In modern times, the candidate who has used the convention period best was Bill Clinton, who showed in 1992 how powerful a tool the convention can be in addressing loosely held, or even erroneous, perceptions among the voters.
The Arkansas governor had beaten a weak field to win the Democratic nomination, but his victory left him badly damaged by revelations that he had engaged in extramarital affairs and maneuvered to avoid being drafted for the Vietnam War. After he clinched the nomination in early June, a succession of general-election polls showed him in third place, trailing not only Republican President George H. W. Bush, but also Ross Perot, the quirky independent candidate.
Cliff Schecter on Donald Trump’s weird nonsense:
