Kamala’s tax cut collision course

Vice President Kamala Harris is trying to set herself apart from former President Donald Trump in every possible way. At the top of her list is putting daylight between her economic agenda and her opponent’s with a promise to let his signature Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expire. The only problem is that if those cuts expire, taxes are going up on earners who are making less than $400,000 a year. 

Congress and the next administration are headed for a huge tax fight next year when the “Trump tax cuts” expire. The Washington Examiner has laid out the various parts of that coming fight, with looks at wrangling over the corporate tax rate and the child tax credit. This morning, White House Reporter Haisten Willis took a look at the most personal, and possibly the most political, matter at hand with letting the cuts expire or renewing and expanding them. 

“[Harris’s] campaign says she’s keeping President Joe Biden’s promise not to raise taxes on anyone making under $400,000. However, she also appears to be keeping Biden’s promise to let the 2017 Trump tax cuts ‘stay expired’ when portions of the law lapse next year,” Haisten wrote. 

“That expiration would raise taxes on middle-income earners in the absence of new legislation. The 2017 overhaul included lower tax rates, an enlarged child tax credit, a doubled standard deduction, and many other provisions that, on balance, cut taxes for people below the $400,000 threshold,” he wrote.

Trump’s tax plan has been celebrated by Republicans as a crowning jewel the country could afford as it basked in a roaring economy. 

Democrats have blasted the plan as a giveaway to the rich that made life more comfortable for top earners while leaning on middle- and low-income taxpayers to foot the bill. 

“We believe in a future where every person has the opportunity not just to get by but to get ahead,” Harris said at a Wisconsin campaign rally in late July. “Building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency.”

While the cuts were larger for top earners — taxpayers in the top bracket had their rates reduced from 39% to 37%, compared to those making between $191,951 and $243,725, whose rate went from 33% to 32% — most people saw a reduction in their tax burden. 

“A contemporary analysis of the 2017 tax code rewrite from the Tax Policy Center, a center-left nonprofit research organization, found that [the TCJA] would cut taxes across the income spectrum,” Haisten wrote. “A score of the bill from the Joint Committee on Taxation, which provides tax analysis for Congress, found that majorities of middle-income households would see significant tax cuts. A report from the Congressional Budget Office, Congress’s nonpartisan in-house group of budget experts, indicated that the law reduced tax rates for all groups in 2018.” 

Harris is supposed to roll out the first significant policy pitch for voters on Friday when she travels to Raleigh, North Carolina. That appearance will reportedly be focused on economic plans for her administration. 

Harris’s policy plans have been vague to this point in the campaign, aside from keeping Biden’s promise that no one making less than $400,000 a year will pay anything more in taxes. The problem with keeping that promise and her vow to let the Trump tax cuts die is that writing a new tax bill is onerous and will depend on which party controls the House and Senate. 

“If they really want to keep the under $400,000 promise, then they will have to write a new bill,” Gerald Friedman, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, told Haisten. “Which they can do if they have a majority in Congress.”

Click here to read more about the tax cut fight coming in 2025.

Truth in advertising? 

Putting something on the internet, or in a campaign ad, doesn’t make it true. And two Democratic Senate hopefuls, along with Harris, are under fire for skirting the line of using misinformation in their quests for higher office. 

Senate Reporter Ramsey Touchberry dove into the legal but ethical morass of campaigns rewriting news headlines in Google Search ads to make it appear as though news outlets were writing favorable stories about them. 

“The campaigns of two Democratic candidates for Senate and the campaign arm of Senate Democrats have used Google Search ads in the past year to manipulate news headlines and article descriptions presented to internet users,” Ramsey wrote.

“A Washington Examiner analysis of Google’s Ad Transparency Center reveals the Senate campaigns of Reps. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) used the tactic this year against their GOP opponents, promoting real news links but with previews displaying alternate headlines and subtexts crafted by the campaigns,” he added.

Sponsored ads will direct users to legitimate news articles, though they may find a different headline and description of the story they were expecting. And while the sponsored ad often includes a disclaimer the result is “paid for by” various campaigns, that caveat hasn’t always been consistently applied. 

“The ads from Slotkin, Schiff, and DSCC do not currently display the proper ‘paid for by’ disclaimer when viewing them in Google’s Ad Library, which the company has said is due to a technical glitch,” Ramsey wrote. “All the campaigns have verified Google advertising accounts.”

Click here to read more about the media manipulation in campaign advertising.

Tar Heel turn

Trump is making fun of Harris every chance he gets, but his appearance in North Carolina on Wednesday night shows he doesn’t think this campaign is all fun and games. 

Harris’s move to the top of the ticket and its energizing effect on Democrats have been well documented. Fundraising, volunteer turnout, and voter registration are all up for her party. And downballot candidates are feeling better than ever now that they have an energetic executive’s coattails to ride. 

It also looks like Harris is not only turning the tide in swing states Biden was trailing in, but she is also expanding the map by creating new ones. For the campaign that is getting talked about like a second coming of former President Barack Obama, Harris’s team has its sights set on repeating the rare Democratic feat of convincing Tar Heel State voters to line up behind someone other than a Republican presidential candidate. 

“A source close to the Harris campaign said the team has been investing in North Carolina for a year, with almost 30 offices expected to be opened by the end of the week,” White House Reporter Naomi Lim wrote. “Meanwhile, Harris herself will be making a trip to North Carolina on Friday, her eighth of the year, to deliver a policy-focused address on the economy.” 

Republicans told Naomi they aren’t worried about whatever “Kamalamentum” might be telling Democrats they have put North Carolina in play. There are deep ties between the state and the GOP, including two North Carolinians in the upper echelons of the Republican National Committee. 

“In 2016 and 2020, Democrats lit money on fire in North Carolina only to lose to President Trump,” RNC spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement. “With President Trump’s record of success in the state and two North Carolinians at the helm of the RNC, 2024 will be no different — Tar Heel State families have felt the strain of Kamala’s failures and are ready to deliver for President Trump yet again.”

North Carolina isn’t a must-win state for Harris, whose paths to victory almost all run exclusively through Pennsylvania. But by putting North Carolina in play, or at least making Trump and the GOP act as though it could slip away from them, she is making life easier for herself as the sprint to Election Day nears. 

For a few short weeks, Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) was considered a front-runner to join Harris at the top of the ticket. He took himself out of the contest, pointing to his controversial Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson as the reason he couldn’t afford to leave the state to stump with Harris. 

Democrats are spooked by Robinson’s rhetoric, which could turn out to be a boon for Harris. Those roughly 30 offices her campaign has set up in the state don’t need her to be crisscrossing the state to turn up the excitement level as they will be engaged with fighting off Robinson, who is running to replace the term-limited Cooper. 

Click here to read more about how likely Harris is to repeat Obama’s feat in North Carolina.

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Biden will make his first campaign appearance with Harris at Prince George’s Community College in Maryland at 1:30. The pair will speak about the progress they are making “to lower costs for the American people.” 

2024-08-15 12:32:00, http://s.wordpress.com/mshots/v1/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonexaminer.com%2Fnews%2Fcampaigns%2F3122334%2Fwake-up-washington-examiner-harris-tax-conundrum-democrats-advertising-adversity-new-swing-state%2F?w=600&h=450, Kamala’s tax cut collision course Vice President Kamala Harris is trying to set herself apart from former President Donald Trump in every possible way. At the top of her list is putting daylight between her economic agenda and her opponent’s with a promise to let his signature Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expire. The only,

Kamala’s tax cut collision course

Vice President Kamala Harris is trying to set herself apart from former President Donald Trump in every possible way. At the top of her list is putting daylight between her economic agenda and her opponent’s with a promise to let his signature Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expire. The only problem is that if those cuts expire, taxes are going up on earners who are making less than $400,000 a year. 

Congress and the next administration are headed for a huge tax fight next year when the “Trump tax cuts” expire. The Washington Examiner has laid out the various parts of that coming fight, with looks at wrangling over the corporate tax rate and the child tax credit. This morning, White House Reporter Haisten Willis took a look at the most personal, and possibly the most political, matter at hand with letting the cuts expire or renewing and expanding them. 

“[Harris’s] campaign says she’s keeping President Joe Biden’s promise not to raise taxes on anyone making under $400,000. However, she also appears to be keeping Biden’s promise to let the 2017 Trump tax cuts ‘stay expired’ when portions of the law lapse next year,” Haisten wrote. 

“That expiration would raise taxes on middle-income earners in the absence of new legislation. The 2017 overhaul included lower tax rates, an enlarged child tax credit, a doubled standard deduction, and many other provisions that, on balance, cut taxes for people below the $400,000 threshold,” he wrote.

Trump’s tax plan has been celebrated by Republicans as a crowning jewel the country could afford as it basked in a roaring economy. 

Democrats have blasted the plan as a giveaway to the rich that made life more comfortable for top earners while leaning on middle- and low-income taxpayers to foot the bill. 

“We believe in a future where every person has the opportunity not just to get by but to get ahead,” Harris said at a Wisconsin campaign rally in late July. “Building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency.”

While the cuts were larger for top earners — taxpayers in the top bracket had their rates reduced from 39% to 37%, compared to those making between $191,951 and $243,725, whose rate went from 33% to 32% — most people saw a reduction in their tax burden. 

“A contemporary analysis of the 2017 tax code rewrite from the Tax Policy Center, a center-left nonprofit research organization, found that [the TCJA] would cut taxes across the income spectrum,” Haisten wrote. “A score of the bill from the Joint Committee on Taxation, which provides tax analysis for Congress, found that majorities of middle-income households would see significant tax cuts. A report from the Congressional Budget Office, Congress’s nonpartisan in-house group of budget experts, indicated that the law reduced tax rates for all groups in 2018.” 

Harris is supposed to roll out the first significant policy pitch for voters on Friday when she travels to Raleigh, North Carolina. That appearance will reportedly be focused on economic plans for her administration. 

Harris’s policy plans have been vague to this point in the campaign, aside from keeping Biden’s promise that no one making less than $400,000 a year will pay anything more in taxes. The problem with keeping that promise and her vow to let the Trump tax cuts die is that writing a new tax bill is onerous and will depend on which party controls the House and Senate. 

“If they really want to keep the under $400,000 promise, then they will have to write a new bill,” Gerald Friedman, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, told Haisten. “Which they can do if they have a majority in Congress.”

Click here to read more about the tax cut fight coming in 2025.

Truth in advertising? 

Putting something on the internet, or in a campaign ad, doesn’t make it true. And two Democratic Senate hopefuls, along with Harris, are under fire for skirting the line of using misinformation in their quests for higher office. 

Senate Reporter Ramsey Touchberry dove into the legal but ethical morass of campaigns rewriting news headlines in Google Search ads to make it appear as though news outlets were writing favorable stories about them. 

“The campaigns of two Democratic candidates for Senate and the campaign arm of Senate Democrats have used Google Search ads in the past year to manipulate news headlines and article descriptions presented to internet users,” Ramsey wrote.

“A Washington Examiner analysis of Google’s Ad Transparency Center reveals the Senate campaigns of Reps. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) used the tactic this year against their GOP opponents, promoting real news links but with previews displaying alternate headlines and subtexts crafted by the campaigns,” he added.

Sponsored ads will direct users to legitimate news articles, though they may find a different headline and description of the story they were expecting. And while the sponsored ad often includes a disclaimer the result is “paid for by” various campaigns, that caveat hasn’t always been consistently applied. 

“The ads from Slotkin, Schiff, and DSCC do not currently display the proper ‘paid for by’ disclaimer when viewing them in Google’s Ad Library, which the company has said is due to a technical glitch,” Ramsey wrote. “All the campaigns have verified Google advertising accounts.”

Click here to read more about the media manipulation in campaign advertising.

Tar Heel turn

Trump is making fun of Harris every chance he gets, but his appearance in North Carolina on Wednesday night shows he doesn’t think this campaign is all fun and games. 

Harris’s move to the top of the ticket and its energizing effect on Democrats have been well documented. Fundraising, volunteer turnout, and voter registration are all up for her party. And downballot candidates are feeling better than ever now that they have an energetic executive’s coattails to ride. 

It also looks like Harris is not only turning the tide in swing states Biden was trailing in, but she is also expanding the map by creating new ones. For the campaign that is getting talked about like a second coming of former President Barack Obama, Harris’s team has its sights set on repeating the rare Democratic feat of convincing Tar Heel State voters to line up behind someone other than a Republican presidential candidate. 

“A source close to the Harris campaign said the team has been investing in North Carolina for a year, with almost 30 offices expected to be opened by the end of the week,” White House Reporter Naomi Lim wrote. “Meanwhile, Harris herself will be making a trip to North Carolina on Friday, her eighth of the year, to deliver a policy-focused address on the economy.” 

Republicans told Naomi they aren’t worried about whatever “Kamalamentum” might be telling Democrats they have put North Carolina in play. There are deep ties between the state and the GOP, including two North Carolinians in the upper echelons of the Republican National Committee. 

“In 2016 and 2020, Democrats lit money on fire in North Carolina only to lose to President Trump,” RNC spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement. “With President Trump’s record of success in the state and two North Carolinians at the helm of the RNC, 2024 will be no different — Tar Heel State families have felt the strain of Kamala’s failures and are ready to deliver for President Trump yet again.”

North Carolina isn’t a must-win state for Harris, whose paths to victory almost all run exclusively through Pennsylvania. But by putting North Carolina in play, or at least making Trump and the GOP act as though it could slip away from them, she is making life easier for herself as the sprint to Election Day nears. 

For a few short weeks, Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) was considered a front-runner to join Harris at the top of the ticket. He took himself out of the contest, pointing to his controversial Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson as the reason he couldn’t afford to leave the state to stump with Harris. 

Democrats are spooked by Robinson’s rhetoric, which could turn out to be a boon for Harris. Those roughly 30 offices her campaign has set up in the state don’t need her to be crisscrossing the state to turn up the excitement level as they will be engaged with fighting off Robinson, who is running to replace the term-limited Cooper. 

Click here to read more about how likely Harris is to repeat Obama’s feat in North Carolina.

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For your radar

Biden will make his first campaign appearance with Harris at Prince George’s Community College in Maryland at 1:30. The pair will speak about the progress they are making “to lower costs for the American people.” 

, Kamala’s tax cut collision course Vice President Kamala Harris is trying to set herself apart from former President Donald Trump in every possible way. At the top of her list is putting daylight between her economic agenda and her opponent’s with a promise to let his signature Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expire. The only problem is that if those cuts expire, taxes are going up on earners who are making less than $400,000 a year.  Congress and the next administration are headed for a huge tax fight next year when the “Trump tax cuts” expire. The Washington Examiner has laid out the various parts of that coming fight, with looks at wrangling over the corporate tax rate and the child tax credit. This morning, White House Reporter Haisten Willis took a look at the most personal, and possibly the most political, matter at hand with letting the cuts expire or renewing and expanding them.  “[Harris’s] campaign says she’s keeping President Joe Biden’s promise not to raise taxes on anyone making under $400,000. However, she also appears to be keeping Biden’s promise to let the 2017 Trump tax cuts ‘stay expired’ when portions of the law lapse next year,” Haisten wrote.  “That expiration would raise taxes on middle-income earners in the absence of new legislation. The 2017 overhaul included lower tax rates, an enlarged child tax credit, a doubled standard deduction, and many other provisions that, on balance, cut taxes for people below the $400,000 threshold,” he wrote. Trump’s tax plan has been celebrated by Republicans as a crowning jewel the country could afford as it basked in a roaring economy.  Democrats have blasted the plan as a giveaway to the rich that made life more comfortable for top earners while leaning on middle- and low-income taxpayers to foot the bill.  “We believe in a future where every person has the opportunity not just to get by but to get ahead,” Harris said at a Wisconsin campaign rally in late July. “Building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency.” While the cuts were larger for top earners — taxpayers in the top bracket had their rates reduced from 39% to 37%, compared to those making between $191,951 and $243,725, whose rate went from 33% to 32% — most people saw a reduction in their tax burden.  “A contemporary analysis of the 2017 tax code rewrite from the Tax Policy Center, a center-left nonprofit research organization, found that [the TCJA] would cut taxes across the income spectrum,” Haisten wrote. “A score of the bill from the Joint Committee on Taxation, which provides tax analysis for Congress, found that majorities of middle-income households would see significant tax cuts. A report from the Congressional Budget Office, Congress’s nonpartisan in-house group of budget experts, indicated that the law reduced tax rates for all groups in 2018.”  Harris is supposed to roll out the first significant policy pitch for voters on Friday when she travels to Raleigh, North Carolina. That appearance will reportedly be focused on economic plans for her administration.  Harris’s policy plans have been vague to this point in the campaign, aside from keeping Biden’s promise that no one making less than $400,000 a year will pay anything more in taxes. The problem with keeping that promise and her vow to let the Trump tax cuts die is that writing a new tax bill is onerous and will depend on which party controls the House and Senate.  “If they really want to keep the under $400,000 promise, then they will have to write a new bill,” Gerald Friedman, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, told Haisten. “Which they can do if they have a majority in Congress.” Click here to read more about the tax cut fight coming in 2025. Truth in advertising?  Putting something on the internet, or in a campaign ad, doesn’t make it true. And two Democratic Senate hopefuls, along with Harris, are under fire for skirting the line of using misinformation in their quests for higher office.  Senate Reporter Ramsey Touchberry dove into the legal but ethical morass of campaigns rewriting news headlines in Google Search ads to make it appear as though news outlets were writing favorable stories about them.  “The campaigns of two Democratic candidates for Senate and the campaign arm of Senate Democrats have used Google Search ads in the past year to manipulate news headlines and article descriptions presented to internet users,” Ramsey wrote. “A Washington Examiner analysis of Google’s Ad Transparency Center reveals the Senate campaigns of Reps. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) used the tactic this year against their GOP opponents, promoting real news links but with previews displaying alternate headlines and subtexts crafted by the campaigns,” he added. Sponsored ads will direct users to legitimate news articles, though they may find a different headline and description of the story they were expecting. And while the sponsored ad often includes a disclaimer the result is “paid for by” various campaigns, that caveat hasn’t always been consistently applied.  “The ads from Slotkin, Schiff, and DSCC do not currently display the proper ‘paid for by’ disclaimer when viewing them in Google’s Ad Library, which the company has said is due to a technical glitch,” Ramsey wrote. “All the campaigns have verified Google advertising accounts.” Click here to read more about the media manipulation in campaign advertising. Tar Heel turn Trump is making fun of Harris every chance he gets, but his appearance in North Carolina on Wednesday night shows he doesn’t think this campaign is all fun and games.  Harris’s move to the top of the ticket and its energizing effect on Democrats have been well documented. Fundraising, volunteer turnout, and voter registration are all up for her party. And downballot candidates are feeling better than ever now that they have an energetic executive’s coattails to ride.  It also looks like Harris is not only turning the tide in swing states Biden was trailing in, but she is also expanding the map by creating new ones. For the campaign that is getting talked about like a second coming of former President Barack Obama, Harris’s team has its sights set on repeating the rare Democratic feat of convincing Tar Heel State voters to line up behind someone other than a Republican presidential candidate.  “A source close to the Harris campaign said the team has been investing in North Carolina for a year, with almost 30 offices expected to be opened by the end of the week,” White House Reporter Naomi Lim wrote. “Meanwhile, Harris herself will be making a trip to North Carolina on Friday, her eighth of the year, to deliver a policy-focused address on the economy.”  Republicans told Naomi they aren’t worried about whatever “Kamalamentum” might be telling Democrats they have put North Carolina in play. There are deep ties between the state and the GOP, including two North Carolinians in the upper echelons of the Republican National Committee.  “In 2016 and 2020, Democrats lit money on fire in North Carolina only to lose to President Trump,” RNC spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement. “With President Trump’s record of success in the state and two North Carolinians at the helm of the RNC, 2024 will be no different — Tar Heel State families have felt the strain of Kamala’s failures and are ready to deliver for President Trump yet again.” North Carolina isn’t a must-win state for Harris, whose paths to victory almost all run exclusively through Pennsylvania. But by putting North Carolina in play, or at least making Trump and the GOP act as though it could slip away from them, she is making life easier for herself as the sprint to Election Day nears.  For a few short weeks, Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) was considered a front-runner to join Harris at the top of the ticket. He took himself out of the contest, pointing to his controversial Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson as the reason he couldn’t afford to leave the state to stump with Harris.  Democrats are spooked by Robinson’s rhetoric, which could turn out to be a boon for Harris. Those roughly 30 offices her campaign has set up in the state don’t need her to be crisscrossing the state to turn up the excitement level as they will be engaged with fighting off Robinson, who is running to replace the term-limited Cooper.  Click here to read more about how likely Harris is to repeat Obama’s feat in North Carolina. New from us Government unions lose big in Arizona Kamala Harris seeks to unburden herself of Biden record Plagued by inflation, working-class Michiganders turn to Trump In blog post, Kamala Harris urged bail fund donations for ‘front lines’ during 2020 riots Cooler inflation reports all but assure rate cut at next Fed meeting Texas stops busing migrants to Chicago months before Democratic convention Employee civil rights protections at risk under AI DEI hiring discrimination Harris weighs how closely to embrace Biden agenda House Democrats expand ‘red to blue’ program with Harris at top of ticket In case you missed it It might be time to invest in identity theft protection The White House is confident the latest student debt cancellation scheme is legally sound Anti-Israel protests drove another president to the exits Put a Vance-Walz showdown on your calendar For your radar Biden will make his first campaign appearance with Harris at Prince George’s Community College in Maryland at 1:30. The pair will speak about the progress they are making “to lower costs for the American people.” , , , https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/kamala-harris-tax-north-carolina.webp, Washington Examiner, Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-favicon-32×32.png, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feed/, Max Thornberry,

Child tax credit throwdown

Democrats and Republicans will find themselves in a strange position next year as former President Donald Trump’s signature achievement expires and a new Congress is left with an opportunity to reshape the tax code. Congress being left with work to do on rethinking the future of taxes isn’t what’s strange, though. What a divided Washington, almost certainly split by miniscule majorities in the House and Senate, will find odd is a general agreement that reworking the child tax credit is in everyone’s interest. 

In the second part of our series examining the “tax cliff” the country is speeding toward, Economics and Business Reporter Zachary Halaschak took a pulse check of how one of the most popular tax ideas could get a new lease on life. 

A brief primer from Zachary:

“The child tax credit began with bipartisan support in 1997 under President Bill Clinton. Those with children who met certain criteria were allowed to subtract the amount of the tax credit from their federal income taxes. Then, the credit was nonrefundable, meaning that the filer’s credit could not be higher than the amount of taxes owed. They would not receive a cash reimbursement.

Under President George W. Bush, the child tax credit increased from $500 to $1,000 and was made partially refundable for certain low-income taxpayers. Over the years and under subsequent administrations, the child tax credit was subtly changed and expanded, but former President Donald Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, known as the Trump tax cuts, essentially doubled it for families.”

Politicians, of whatever stripe, aren’t winning any new votes by stripping checks away from taxpayers. Dropping an extra $2,000 into the bank accounts of parents come tax season is a political winner, even if the economic arguments are fraught and the advisers are agitating for a different approach to the popular policy. 

Democrats expanded the tax credit as part of President Joe Biden’s monster spending American Rescue Plan Act. They pushed the credit to as high as $3,600 for children under 6 and $3,000 for other children. Those payments came back down at the end of 2021 when the approved ARP funding ran out.

That’s the figure they’d like to get back to during negotiations over the tax credit’s future next year. 

Republicans would be more comfortable with a smaller credit, but they are more concerned about attaching work requirements to any payment, and indexing the return to inflation — raising the base payment while protecting its value against unknown future economic conditions. 

Critics of the credit told Zachary that lawmakers should spend more time focusing on tax policy that will do more to spur employment and investment rather than depositing checks in individual accounts. 

The credit is expensive, and while it can move margins for individual families, it does little to shape the broader landscape.

“The child tax credit has a big budget impact, and so the more of the bill, or the extension, is allocated toward the child tax credit, the less is going to be allocated to things that are better for economic growth like lowering tax rates,” Chris Edwards, an economist with the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, told Zachary. “The child tax credit doesn’t do anything for economic growth because it doesn’t affect incentives to work and invest. It’s just sort of giving people money.”

Click here to read more about the child tax credit fight.

Harris plays defense on policy until she has to turn on Biden

Vice President Kamala Harris is running out of time and opportunity to define herself as distinct from Biden. Not that it will be easy, or optically pleasurable, for the vice president to apply for her boss’s job while she’s on the clock as his No. 2. Creating space between herself and Biden means criticizing the work they’ve done for the last 3 1/2 years — after spending all of that time preparing to take over after Biden was no longer eligible for office rather than replacing him in a bitter turf war. 

To date, Harris has largely evaded committing to any policy plan. She did come out in favor of not taxing tips — though she immediately ran into criticism that she was late to that party after Trump announced his support for the policy earlier this year. 

Her entrance into the race has brought a surge of excitement, volunteers, voter registrations, and cash. Instead of giving any of those new, bright-eyed Democrats coming back into the fold they appear to have left when Biden was in charge, Harris is playing the waiting game. 

With time running out, White House Reporter Naomi Lim laid out how Harris has positioned herself and what it is going to look like when she has no other choice but to put her policy plans up against Trump’s. 

“Harris’s campaign has embraced Biden’s more centrist record to shield her from criticism regarding more liberal policies she adopted in the past, including backing Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, Black Lives Matter, expanding the Supreme Court, a mandatory gun buyback program, a fracking ban, even a federal job guarantee, as recently as her unsuccessful 2020 Democratic primary bid,” Naomi wrote. “But it has also endeavored to posture her toward the future, for instance, through her catch-cry, ‘We’re not going back!’”

It’s a fine line she is walking. She is simultaneously painting herself as Biden’s successor — continuing to get the job done that he started. And his replacement — looking to the future of what the Democratic Party can be, unburdened by what it has been. 

Republicans are fighting tooth and nail to latch Harris to the Biden administration’s flagpole. They are either looking back to her 2019 run for president, when she ran much farther to the left than Biden, or to what she’s done in the White House to date. 

That strategy may or may not be working. Harris has a slight lead over Trump in the Real Clear Politics polling average three weeks into their matchup. 

Pinning immigration and border policy plans on Harris might stick, but as Naomi wrote, tying the administration’s record on the economy and inflation to her rather than Biden is a knot that won’t tighten. 

“Where Democrats broadly can be viewed as weaker on certain issues — like inflation — Harris carries less baggage, and trust in her hasn’t changed despite the efforts by Team Trump,” Priorities USA wrote last week in a memo.

“A separate Blueprint poll found voters blame Harris ‘far less than President Biden for inflation, trusting her more than Biden on nearly every issue, and wanting to hear more about Harris and her policies than about Trump,’” Naomi wrote. 

What comes next, and what could make or break her support, is how she turns the knife on Biden. 

“Harris trails Trump by a lot among voters who say that either the economy or immigration are the most important issues,” Suffolk University Political Research Center Director David Paleologos told Naomi.

“If she defends Biden unequivocally, she point-blank loses on those two issues, which she cannot afford to do,” Paleologos said. “Therefore, she needs to carve out where she would do things differently on these issues or suggest new policies, so long as she doesn’t throw Biden under the bus in the meantime, which would be seen as disloyal and opportunistic. It’s a tricky needle to thread.”

Click here to read more about what struggles Harris has to overcome to maintain her momentum.

Trump trial timeouts

Special counsel Jack Smith looked like he changed his mind last week when he went to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan and asked her to pump the brakes on his case against Trump. The former president’s trial for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, has moved at a snail’s pace since the Supreme Court announced it would hear arguments from his team regarding presidential immunity. 

When the court determined Trump had broad protections for official acts he made while in office, Chutkan was given the green light to start the case back up, though with vague guidelines that created strict rules around what Trump could be charged with and what he warranted an “official act” that left Smith without a legitimate way to prosecute him. 

Chutkan was anxious to get started. Trump was not. And last week, Smith signaled his own hesitation to rush forward, asking Chutkan to postpone a deadline for filings before she created a new schedule for the case to move forward. 

Supreme Court Reporter Kaelan Deese broke down what might have sparked Smith’s change of heart for us this morning.

Reasons for all but destroying the possibility of putting Trump back in a courtroom to stand trial before Election Day range from procedural planning to confidence Nov. 5 won’t be an end point for chances to move forward with the charges. 

“Without explicit explanation, Smith’s office indicated that the Department of Justice at large was taking a broader look at the impacts of the immunity decision not just in the Trump case, but how its precedent may impact other divisions at the agency,” Kaelan wrote.

The court’s presidential immunity ruling was sweeping and vague. It put the impetus on lower courts and prosecutors to determine what actions might fall under the “absolute immunity” standard and what could conceivably be argued were outside the realm of “official” acts. Smith and the Department of Justice might simply be shoring up their arguments and evidence to make sure they aren’t preparing to head down a trail that will be blocked by Chutkan or another judge. 

There’s also the possibility that Smith is working on bringing more charges against more people involved in the case. He could also be altering the charges he wants to levy against Trump, now that he has clearer guidelines — assuming any win he notches will be challenged. 

Smith included a slew of unindicted co-conspirators — unnamed but commonly identified as Rudy Giuliani, lawyer John Eastman, lawyer Sidney Powell, former DOJ official Jeff Clark, and lawyer Ken Chesebro — who could also be indicted. 

Click here to read more about why Smith might want to delay — and how the presidential election could play into his calculus.

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Bernie Sanders, 82, eyes his legacy beyond a Tuesday win in Vermont

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For your radar

Biden will travel to New Orleans for an event related to his “Cancer Moonshot.” He will tour a facility and deliver remarks at 4:30 p.m. Eastern. 

Harris has nothing on her public schedule. 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will gaggle with reporters on Air Force One en route to New Orleans. 

2024-08-13 12:32:00, http://s.wordpress.com/mshots/v1/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonexaminer.com%2Fnews%2Fcampaigns%2F3119471%2Fwake-up-washington-examiner-child-tax-credit-crunch-waiting-harris-knife-biden-why-smith-stalling%2F?w=600&h=450, Child tax credit throwdown Democrats and Republicans will find themselves in a strange position next year as former President Donald Trump’s signature achievement expires and a new Congress is left with an opportunity to reshape the tax code. Congress being left with work to do on rethinking the future of taxes isn’t what’s strange, though.,

Child tax credit throwdown

Democrats and Republicans will find themselves in a strange position next year as former President Donald Trump’s signature achievement expires and a new Congress is left with an opportunity to reshape the tax code. Congress being left with work to do on rethinking the future of taxes isn’t what’s strange, though. What a divided Washington, almost certainly split by miniscule majorities in the House and Senate, will find odd is a general agreement that reworking the child tax credit is in everyone’s interest. 

In the second part of our series examining the “tax cliff” the country is speeding toward, Economics and Business Reporter Zachary Halaschak took a pulse check of how one of the most popular tax ideas could get a new lease on life. 

A brief primer from Zachary:

“The child tax credit began with bipartisan support in 1997 under President Bill Clinton. Those with children who met certain criteria were allowed to subtract the amount of the tax credit from their federal income taxes. Then, the credit was nonrefundable, meaning that the filer’s credit could not be higher than the amount of taxes owed. They would not receive a cash reimbursement.

Under President George W. Bush, the child tax credit increased from $500 to $1,000 and was made partially refundable for certain low-income taxpayers. Over the years and under subsequent administrations, the child tax credit was subtly changed and expanded, but former President Donald Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, known as the Trump tax cuts, essentially doubled it for families.”

Politicians, of whatever stripe, aren’t winning any new votes by stripping checks away from taxpayers. Dropping an extra $2,000 into the bank accounts of parents come tax season is a political winner, even if the economic arguments are fraught and the advisers are agitating for a different approach to the popular policy. 

Democrats expanded the tax credit as part of President Joe Biden’s monster spending American Rescue Plan Act. They pushed the credit to as high as $3,600 for children under 6 and $3,000 for other children. Those payments came back down at the end of 2021 when the approved ARP funding ran out.

That’s the figure they’d like to get back to during negotiations over the tax credit’s future next year. 

Republicans would be more comfortable with a smaller credit, but they are more concerned about attaching work requirements to any payment, and indexing the return to inflation — raising the base payment while protecting its value against unknown future economic conditions. 

Critics of the credit told Zachary that lawmakers should spend more time focusing on tax policy that will do more to spur employment and investment rather than depositing checks in individual accounts. 

The credit is expensive, and while it can move margins for individual families, it does little to shape the broader landscape.

“The child tax credit has a big budget impact, and so the more of the bill, or the extension, is allocated toward the child tax credit, the less is going to be allocated to things that are better for economic growth like lowering tax rates,” Chris Edwards, an economist with the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, told Zachary. “The child tax credit doesn’t do anything for economic growth because it doesn’t affect incentives to work and invest. It’s just sort of giving people money.”

Click here to read more about the child tax credit fight.

Harris plays defense on policy until she has to turn on Biden

Vice President Kamala Harris is running out of time and opportunity to define herself as distinct from Biden. Not that it will be easy, or optically pleasurable, for the vice president to apply for her boss’s job while she’s on the clock as his No. 2. Creating space between herself and Biden means criticizing the work they’ve done for the last 3 1/2 years — after spending all of that time preparing to take over after Biden was no longer eligible for office rather than replacing him in a bitter turf war. 

To date, Harris has largely evaded committing to any policy plan. She did come out in favor of not taxing tips — though she immediately ran into criticism that she was late to that party after Trump announced his support for the policy earlier this year. 

Her entrance into the race has brought a surge of excitement, volunteers, voter registrations, and cash. Instead of giving any of those new, bright-eyed Democrats coming back into the fold they appear to have left when Biden was in charge, Harris is playing the waiting game. 

With time running out, White House Reporter Naomi Lim laid out how Harris has positioned herself and what it is going to look like when she has no other choice but to put her policy plans up against Trump’s. 

“Harris’s campaign has embraced Biden’s more centrist record to shield her from criticism regarding more liberal policies she adopted in the past, including backing Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, Black Lives Matter, expanding the Supreme Court, a mandatory gun buyback program, a fracking ban, even a federal job guarantee, as recently as her unsuccessful 2020 Democratic primary bid,” Naomi wrote. “But it has also endeavored to posture her toward the future, for instance, through her catch-cry, ‘We’re not going back!’”

It’s a fine line she is walking. She is simultaneously painting herself as Biden’s successor — continuing to get the job done that he started. And his replacement — looking to the future of what the Democratic Party can be, unburdened by what it has been. 

Republicans are fighting tooth and nail to latch Harris to the Biden administration’s flagpole. They are either looking back to her 2019 run for president, when she ran much farther to the left than Biden, or to what she’s done in the White House to date. 

That strategy may or may not be working. Harris has a slight lead over Trump in the Real Clear Politics polling average three weeks into their matchup. 

Pinning immigration and border policy plans on Harris might stick, but as Naomi wrote, tying the administration’s record on the economy and inflation to her rather than Biden is a knot that won’t tighten. 

“Where Democrats broadly can be viewed as weaker on certain issues — like inflation — Harris carries less baggage, and trust in her hasn’t changed despite the efforts by Team Trump,” Priorities USA wrote last week in a memo.

“A separate Blueprint poll found voters blame Harris ‘far less than President Biden for inflation, trusting her more than Biden on nearly every issue, and wanting to hear more about Harris and her policies than about Trump,’” Naomi wrote. 

What comes next, and what could make or break her support, is how she turns the knife on Biden. 

“Harris trails Trump by a lot among voters who say that either the economy or immigration are the most important issues,” Suffolk University Political Research Center Director David Paleologos told Naomi.

“If she defends Biden unequivocally, she point-blank loses on those two issues, which she cannot afford to do,” Paleologos said. “Therefore, she needs to carve out where she would do things differently on these issues or suggest new policies, so long as she doesn’t throw Biden under the bus in the meantime, which would be seen as disloyal and opportunistic. It’s a tricky needle to thread.”

Click here to read more about what struggles Harris has to overcome to maintain her momentum.

Trump trial timeouts

Special counsel Jack Smith looked like he changed his mind last week when he went to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan and asked her to pump the brakes on his case against Trump. The former president’s trial for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, has moved at a snail’s pace since the Supreme Court announced it would hear arguments from his team regarding presidential immunity. 

When the court determined Trump had broad protections for official acts he made while in office, Chutkan was given the green light to start the case back up, though with vague guidelines that created strict rules around what Trump could be charged with and what he warranted an “official act” that left Smith without a legitimate way to prosecute him. 

Chutkan was anxious to get started. Trump was not. And last week, Smith signaled his own hesitation to rush forward, asking Chutkan to postpone a deadline for filings before she created a new schedule for the case to move forward. 

Supreme Court Reporter Kaelan Deese broke down what might have sparked Smith’s change of heart for us this morning.

Reasons for all but destroying the possibility of putting Trump back in a courtroom to stand trial before Election Day range from procedural planning to confidence Nov. 5 won’t be an end point for chances to move forward with the charges. 

“Without explicit explanation, Smith’s office indicated that the Department of Justice at large was taking a broader look at the impacts of the immunity decision not just in the Trump case, but how its precedent may impact other divisions at the agency,” Kaelan wrote.

The court’s presidential immunity ruling was sweeping and vague. It put the impetus on lower courts and prosecutors to determine what actions might fall under the “absolute immunity” standard and what could conceivably be argued were outside the realm of “official” acts. Smith and the Department of Justice might simply be shoring up their arguments and evidence to make sure they aren’t preparing to head down a trail that will be blocked by Chutkan or another judge. 

There’s also the possibility that Smith is working on bringing more charges against more people involved in the case. He could also be altering the charges he wants to levy against Trump, now that he has clearer guidelines — assuming any win he notches will be challenged. 

Smith included a slew of unindicted co-conspirators — unnamed but commonly identified as Rudy Giuliani, lawyer John Eastman, lawyer Sidney Powell, former DOJ official Jeff Clark, and lawyer Ken Chesebro — who could also be indicted. 

Click here to read more about why Smith might want to delay — and how the presidential election could play into his calculus.

New from us

Kamala has a record on immigration

It’s Republicans’ turn to panic about their nominee and the polls

Tim Walz called Hitler-promoting cleric a ‘master teacher’ at Islamic center event

Ilhan Omar primary challenge turns ugly as ‘Squad’ Democrat seeks fourth term

Tim Walz education record shows teachers union capitulation and left-wing priorities

HHS under GOP fire for putting migrant children ‘in danger’

Bernie Sanders, 82, eyes his legacy beyond a Tuesday win in Vermont

Jim Jordan opponent reaches $1 million mark amid Kamala Harris excitement

In case you missed it

Eventually, presidential candidates are going to stop sitting down with Elon Musk on Spaces

NRSC changes course on spending in Ohio

Zyn is a sin Walz is making people pay top-dollar for

For your radar

Biden will travel to New Orleans for an event related to his “Cancer Moonshot.” He will tour a facility and deliver remarks at 4:30 p.m. Eastern. 

Harris has nothing on her public schedule. 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will gaggle with reporters on Air Force One en route to New Orleans. 

, Child tax credit throwdown Democrats and Republicans will find themselves in a strange position next year as former President Donald Trump’s signature achievement expires and a new Congress is left with an opportunity to reshape the tax code. Congress being left with work to do on rethinking the future of taxes isn’t what’s strange, though. What a divided Washington, almost certainly split by miniscule majorities in the House and Senate, will find odd is a general agreement that reworking the child tax credit is in everyone’s interest.  In the second part of our series examining the “tax cliff” the country is speeding toward, Economics and Business Reporter Zachary Halaschak took a pulse check of how one of the most popular tax ideas could get a new lease on life.  A brief primer from Zachary: “The child tax credit began with bipartisan support in 1997 under President Bill Clinton. Those with children who met certain criteria were allowed to subtract the amount of the tax credit from their federal income taxes. Then, the credit was nonrefundable, meaning that the filer’s credit could not be higher than the amount of taxes owed. They would not receive a cash reimbursement. Under President George W. Bush, the child tax credit increased from $500 to $1,000 and was made partially refundable for certain low-income taxpayers. Over the years and under subsequent administrations, the child tax credit was subtly changed and expanded, but former President Donald Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, known as the Trump tax cuts, essentially doubled it for families.” Politicians, of whatever stripe, aren’t winning any new votes by stripping checks away from taxpayers. Dropping an extra $2,000 into the bank accounts of parents come tax season is a political winner, even if the economic arguments are fraught and the advisers are agitating for a different approach to the popular policy.  Democrats expanded the tax credit as part of President Joe Biden’s monster spending American Rescue Plan Act. They pushed the credit to as high as $3,600 for children under 6 and $3,000 for other children. Those payments came back down at the end of 2021 when the approved ARP funding ran out. That’s the figure they’d like to get back to during negotiations over the tax credit’s future next year.  Republicans would be more comfortable with a smaller credit, but they are more concerned about attaching work requirements to any payment, and indexing the return to inflation — raising the base payment while protecting its value against unknown future economic conditions.  Critics of the credit told Zachary that lawmakers should spend more time focusing on tax policy that will do more to spur employment and investment rather than depositing checks in individual accounts.  The credit is expensive, and while it can move margins for individual families, it does little to shape the broader landscape. “The child tax credit has a big budget impact, and so the more of the bill, or the extension, is allocated toward the child tax credit, the less is going to be allocated to things that are better for economic growth like lowering tax rates,” Chris Edwards, an economist with the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, told Zachary. “The child tax credit doesn’t do anything for economic growth because it doesn’t affect incentives to work and invest. It’s just sort of giving people money.” Click here to read more about the child tax credit fight. Harris plays defense on policy until she has to turn on Biden Vice President Kamala Harris is running out of time and opportunity to define herself as distinct from Biden. Not that it will be easy, or optically pleasurable, for the vice president to apply for her boss’s job while she’s on the clock as his No. 2. Creating space between herself and Biden means criticizing the work they’ve done for the last 3 1/2 years — after spending all of that time preparing to take over after Biden was no longer eligible for office rather than replacing him in a bitter turf war.  To date, Harris has largely evaded committing to any policy plan. She did come out in favor of not taxing tips — though she immediately ran into criticism that she was late to that party after Trump announced his support for the policy earlier this year.  Her entrance into the race has brought a surge of excitement, volunteers, voter registrations, and cash. Instead of giving any of those new, bright-eyed Democrats coming back into the fold they appear to have left when Biden was in charge, Harris is playing the waiting game.  With time running out, White House Reporter Naomi Lim laid out how Harris has positioned herself and what it is going to look like when she has no other choice but to put her policy plans up against Trump’s.  “Harris’s campaign has embraced Biden’s more centrist record to shield her from criticism regarding more liberal policies she adopted in the past, including backing Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, Black Lives Matter, expanding the Supreme Court, a mandatory gun buyback program, a fracking ban, even a federal job guarantee, as recently as her unsuccessful 2020 Democratic primary bid,” Naomi wrote. “But it has also endeavored to posture her toward the future, for instance, through her catch-cry, ‘We’re not going back!’” It’s a fine line she is walking. She is simultaneously painting herself as Biden’s successor — continuing to get the job done that he started. And his replacement — looking to the future of what the Democratic Party can be, unburdened by what it has been.  Republicans are fighting tooth and nail to latch Harris to the Biden administration’s flagpole. They are either looking back to her 2019 run for president, when she ran much farther to the left than Biden, or to what she’s done in the White House to date.  That strategy may or may not be working. Harris has a slight lead over Trump in the Real Clear Politics polling average three weeks into their matchup.  Pinning immigration and border policy plans on Harris might stick, but as Naomi wrote, tying the administration’s record on the economy and inflation to her rather than Biden is a knot that won’t tighten.  “Where Democrats broadly can be viewed as weaker on certain issues — like inflation — Harris carries less baggage, and trust in her hasn’t changed despite the efforts by Team Trump,” Priorities USA wrote last week in a memo. “A separate Bl ueprint poll found voters blame Harris ‘far less than President Biden for inflation, trusting her more than Biden on nearly every issue, and wanting to hear more about Harris and her policies than about Trump,’” Naomi wrote.  What comes next, and what could make or break her support, is how she turns the knife on Biden.  “Harris trails Trump by a lot among voters who say that either the economy or immigration are the most important issues,” Suffolk University Political Research Center Director David Paleologos told Naomi. “If she defends Biden unequivocally, she point-blank loses on those two issues, which she cannot afford to do,” Paleologos said. “Therefore, she needs to carve out where she would do things differently on these issues or suggest new policies, so long as she doesn’t throw Biden under the bus in the meantime, which would be seen as disloyal and opportunistic. It’s a tricky needle to thread.” Click here to read more about what struggles Harris has to overcome to maintain her momentum. Trump trial timeouts Special counsel Jack Smith looked like he changed his mind last week when he went to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan and asked her to pump the brakes on his case against Trump. The former president’s trial for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, has moved at a snail’s pace since the Supreme Court announced it would hear arguments from his team regarding presidential immunity.  When the court determined Trump had broad protections for official acts he made while in office, Chutkan was given the green light to start the case back up, though with vague guidelines that created strict rules around what Trump could be charged with and what he warranted an “official act” that left Smith without a legitimate way to prosecute him.  Chutkan was anxious to get started. Trump was not. And last week, Smith signaled his own hesitation to rush forward, asking Chutkan to postpone a deadline for filings before she created a new schedule for the case to move forward.  Supreme Court Reporter Kaelan Deese broke down what might have sparked Smith’s change of heart for us this morning. Reasons for all but destroying the possibility of putting Trump back in a courtroom to stand trial before Election Day range from procedural planning to confidence Nov. 5 won’t be an end point for chances to move forward with the charges.  “Without explicit explanation, Smith’s office indicated that the Department of Justice at large was taking a broader look at the impacts of the immunity decision not just in the Trump case, but how its precedent may impact other divisions at the agency,” Kaelan wrote. The court’s presidential immunity ruling was sweeping and vague. It put the impetus on lower courts and prosecutors to determine what actions might fall under the “absolute immunity” standard and what could conceivably be argued were outside the realm of “official” acts. Smith and the Department of Justice might simply be shoring up their arguments and evidence to make sure they aren’t preparing to head down a trail that will be blocked by Chutkan or another judge.  There’s also the possibility that Smith is working on bringing more charges against more people involved in the case. He could also be altering the charges he wants to levy against Trump, now that he has clearer guidelines — assuming any win he notches will be challenged.  Smith included a slew of unindicted co-conspirators — unnamed but commonly identified as Rudy Giuliani, lawyer John Eastman, lawyer Sidney Powell, former DOJ official Jeff Clark, and lawyer Ken Chesebro — who could also be indicted.  Click here to read more about why Smith might want to delay — and how the presidential election could play into his calculus. New from us Kamala has a record on immigration It’s Republicans’ turn to panic about their nominee and the polls Tim Walz called Hitler-promoting cleric a ‘master teacher’ at Islamic center event Ilhan Omar primary challenge turns ugly as ‘Squad’ Democrat seeks fourth term Tim Walz education record shows teachers union capitulation and left-wing priorities HHS under GOP fire for putting migrant children ‘in danger’ Bernie Sanders, 82, eyes his legacy beyond a Tuesday win in Vermont Jim Jordan opponent reaches $1 million mark amid Kamala Harris excitement In case you missed it Eventually, presidential candidates are going to stop sitting down with Elon Musk on Spaces NRSC changes course on spending in Ohio Zyn is a sin Walz is making people pay top-dollar for For your radar Biden will travel to New Orleans for an event related to his “Cancer Moonshot.” He will tour a facility and deliver remarks at 4:30 p.m. Eastern.  Harris has nothing on her public schedule.  White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will gaggle with reporters on Air Force One en route to New Orleans. , , , https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/harris-biden-difference-policy.webp, Washington Examiner, Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-favicon-32×32.png, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feed/, Max Thornberry,

Back by populist demand — tax hikes? 

President Joe Biden made it a point to come into the White House and, like Donald Trump before him, systematically dismantle the legacy of the man who was leaving office. That promise has been a mixed bag — Biden has kept most of Trump’s tariffs on China in place, he’s struggling to push through his Title IX rewrite, and his border policy has been sporadic. One area in which he has struggled to make any headway has been taxes. 

Trump’s “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” more commonly referred to as the “Trump tax cuts,” that lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% hasn’t gone anywhere. The stickiness of the cuts is down to it getting passed through both chambers of Congress and being signed into law in 2017. Presidents have a lot of power, though their authority stops at being able to overturn law unilaterally. 

It isn’t going to happen on Biden’s watch, but those tax cuts are set to expire in 2025, and as it stands, it’s not clear how Congress is going to address the looming “tax cliff.” That’s what we are examining this week with our series, and Economics and Business Reporter Zachary Halaschak started us off with a rundown of why the corporate tax rate could pose such a problem for Republicans in particular. 

“The 2017 Republican tax overhaul lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% — and unlike the changes made to individual and estate tax, that cut is permanent in law. Yet the rise of populism in the United States and the demands of international tax competition have coincided to cast doubt on the stability of corporate taxation,” Zachary wrote. “Accordingly, the outcome of the 2024 elections and control of the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate will determine how the corporate tax rate is altered in broader talks about taxation and spending.” 

“It was Republicans who lowered the rate, but now different factions of the party might seek to change it,” he wrote. 

Trump is staying on board with his plan to cut taxes for corporations and for individuals. So far, he has promised to lower the corporate tax rate even further to 15%. Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t taken a clear position, though Zachary pointed out the Biden administration has argued the rate needs to go back up to somewhere near 28%, which might not be high enough to soothe the left wing of the Democratic Party. 

Interestingly, for Republicans, the top of their ticket is of two minds on what to do about what might be Trump’s signature policy achievement. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) has said the rate shouldn’t be cut any further, putting him in soft opposition to Trump. 

Should Harris and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) win and manage to pull downballot Democrats in House and Senate races with them to achieve a trifecta of federal control, letting the cuts expire and raising the rate shouldn’t be a heavy lift. 

The more opaque scenario involves a Trump-Vance win, with the president facing opposition from his vice president and a populist contingent of lawmakers who are skeptical of corporations’ patriotism and would be happy to trade increased corporate taxes in return for cutting individual rates. 

Hiking the rate has the backing of conservative intellectuals outside of Congress, too. 

“I think there is obviously a huge fiscal crisis, and conservatives are recognizing that we’re going to need to do something about it,” Oren Cass, the chief economist of American Compass, told Zachary. “And so, in general, I think there is a much greater openness to considering raising revenue than there has been in the past, and then the question is: Where should that come from?”

Click here to read more about the looming fight for the future of the corporate tax rate.

Riding Harris’s coattails

Democratic excitement about having a new principal at the top of the presidential ticket has turned a presidential race into a true toss-up. Just as important for the party, it has emboldened depressed voters about the need to show up on Election Day for downballot candidates, too. 

Republicans taking back the Senate should almost be a lock. They don’t have to defend any competitive seats this cycle and can focus their resources on going on offense in seven states that have seats up for grabs — Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Four of those contests are rated as “toss-ups” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and three are “lean Democratic.” 

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is trying to make the “likely Democratic” contest in Maryland competitive and force Democrats to draw resources away from more intense fights. 

Most of the states in play are important for the presidential and Senate contests. In Wisconsin, Harris taking over for Biden might be enough to push both elections to the left, Senate Reporter Ramsey Touchberry wrote for us this morning. 

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) is running for her third term. She isn’t facing any Democratic challenger in her primary contest on Tuesday. She will likely face off against real estate developer and banker Eric Hovde in November. Hovde is the National Republican Senatorial Committee favorite and is expected to walk to victory over Charles Barman and Rejani Raveendran tomorrow. 

While Hovde has his own set of problems — Democrats have been painting him as a “carpetbagger” due to his ties to California — Baldwin’s chances for victory might come down more to the strength of Harris than the weaknesses of her opponent. 

“It was tough when the vibe around the top of the ticket wasn’t great,” Baldwin campaign spokesman Andrew Mamo told Ramsey. “But the vibe around the top of the ticket right now is fantastic, and we are seeing more volunteers, more grassroots contributions, more people willing to knock on doors.”

Baldwin had been avoiding making public appearances with Biden when he came into town but has appeared twice with Harris in the three-odd weeks since she took the mantle. 

“Very, very exciting,” Baldwin recently told the Washington Examiner after attending a rally with Harris. “I feel like it’s a new beginning to the campaign.”

Hovde and Republicans don’t appear to mind Harris taking over, regardless of the initial boost she is given Baldwin. Their plan is to tie Baldwin to the Biden-Harris administration as closely as possible. 

“She voted for every single word of the Biden-Harris economic agenda that’s put us onto the brink of a recession,” a source close to Hovde told Ramsey of Baldwin. “But what’s different now, too, is you add to that the far-left agendas of not only the vice president but also her running mate.”

Click here to read more about the highly anticipated fight in Wisconsin.

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For your radar

Biden has nothing on his public schedule. He and first lady Jill Biden will leave Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, at 8 a.m. to return to the White House. 

Harris has nothing on her public schedule. She will record video remarks for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees’ 46th International Convention.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will hold the press briefing at 2 p.m.

2024-08-12 12:09:00, http://s.wordpress.com/mshots/v1/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonexaminer.com%2Fnews%2Fcampaigns%2F3118007%2Fwake-up-washington-examiner-populist-demand-rattle-tax-plans-harris-shakes-wisconsin%2F?w=600&h=450, Back by populist demand — tax hikes?  President Joe Biden made it a point to come into the White House and, like Donald Trump before him, systematically dismantle the legacy of the man who was leaving office. That promise has been a mixed bag — Biden has kept most of Trump’s tariffs on China in place,

Back by populist demand — tax hikes? 

President Joe Biden made it a point to come into the White House and, like Donald Trump before him, systematically dismantle the legacy of the man who was leaving office. That promise has been a mixed bag — Biden has kept most of Trump’s tariffs on China in place, he’s struggling to push through his Title IX rewrite, and his border policy has been sporadic. One area in which he has struggled to make any headway has been taxes. 

Trump’s “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” more commonly referred to as the “Trump tax cuts,” that lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% hasn’t gone anywhere. The stickiness of the cuts is down to it getting passed through both chambers of Congress and being signed into law in 2017. Presidents have a lot of power, though their authority stops at being able to overturn law unilaterally. 

It isn’t going to happen on Biden’s watch, but those tax cuts are set to expire in 2025, and as it stands, it’s not clear how Congress is going to address the looming “tax cliff.” That’s what we are examining this week with our series, and Economics and Business Reporter Zachary Halaschak started us off with a rundown of why the corporate tax rate could pose such a problem for Republicans in particular. 

“The 2017 Republican tax overhaul lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% — and unlike the changes made to individual and estate tax, that cut is permanent in law. Yet the rise of populism in the United States and the demands of international tax competition have coincided to cast doubt on the stability of corporate taxation,” Zachary wrote. “Accordingly, the outcome of the 2024 elections and control of the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate will determine how the corporate tax rate is altered in broader talks about taxation and spending.” 

“It was Republicans who lowered the rate, but now different factions of the party might seek to change it,” he wrote. 

Trump is staying on board with his plan to cut taxes for corporations and for individuals. So far, he has promised to lower the corporate tax rate even further to 15%. Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t taken a clear position, though Zachary pointed out the Biden administration has argued the rate needs to go back up to somewhere near 28%, which might not be high enough to soothe the left wing of the Democratic Party. 

Interestingly, for Republicans, the top of their ticket is of two minds on what to do about what might be Trump’s signature policy achievement. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) has said the rate shouldn’t be cut any further, putting him in soft opposition to Trump. 

Should Harris and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) win and manage to pull downballot Democrats in House and Senate races with them to achieve a trifecta of federal control, letting the cuts expire and raising the rate shouldn’t be a heavy lift. 

The more opaque scenario involves a Trump-Vance win, with the president facing opposition from his vice president and a populist contingent of lawmakers who are skeptical of corporations’ patriotism and would be happy to trade increased corporate taxes in return for cutting individual rates. 

Hiking the rate has the backing of conservative intellectuals outside of Congress, too. 

“I think there is obviously a huge fiscal crisis, and conservatives are recognizing that we’re going to need to do something about it,” Oren Cass, the chief economist of American Compass, told Zachary. “And so, in general, I think there is a much greater openness to considering raising revenue than there has been in the past, and then the question is: Where should that come from?”

Click here to read more about the looming fight for the future of the corporate tax rate.

Riding Harris’s coattails

Democratic excitement about having a new principal at the top of the presidential ticket has turned a presidential race into a true toss-up. Just as important for the party, it has emboldened depressed voters about the need to show up on Election Day for downballot candidates, too. 

Republicans taking back the Senate should almost be a lock. They don’t have to defend any competitive seats this cycle and can focus their resources on going on offense in seven states that have seats up for grabs — Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Four of those contests are rated as “toss-ups” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and three are “lean Democratic.” 

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is trying to make the “likely Democratic” contest in Maryland competitive and force Democrats to draw resources away from more intense fights. 

Most of the states in play are important for the presidential and Senate contests. In Wisconsin, Harris taking over for Biden might be enough to push both elections to the left, Senate Reporter Ramsey Touchberry wrote for us this morning. 

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) is running for her third term. She isn’t facing any Democratic challenger in her primary contest on Tuesday. She will likely face off against real estate developer and banker Eric Hovde in November. Hovde is the National Republican Senatorial Committee favorite and is expected to walk to victory over Charles Barman and Rejani Raveendran tomorrow. 

While Hovde has his own set of problems — Democrats have been painting him as a “carpetbagger” due to his ties to California — Baldwin’s chances for victory might come down more to the strength of Harris than the weaknesses of her opponent. 

“It was tough when the vibe around the top of the ticket wasn’t great,” Baldwin campaign spokesman Andrew Mamo told Ramsey. “But the vibe around the top of the ticket right now is fantastic, and we are seeing more volunteers, more grassroots contributions, more people willing to knock on doors.”

Baldwin had been avoiding making public appearances with Biden when he came into town but has appeared twice with Harris in the three-odd weeks since she took the mantle. 

“Very, very exciting,” Baldwin recently told the Washington Examiner after attending a rally with Harris. “I feel like it’s a new beginning to the campaign.”

Hovde and Republicans don’t appear to mind Harris taking over, regardless of the initial boost she is given Baldwin. Their plan is to tie Baldwin to the Biden-Harris administration as closely as possible. 

“She voted for every single word of the Biden-Harris economic agenda that’s put us onto the brink of a recession,” a source close to Hovde told Ramsey of Baldwin. “But what’s different now, too, is you add to that the far-left agendas of not only the vice president but also her running mate.”

Click here to read more about the highly anticipated fight in Wisconsin.

New from us

Democratic voters can evict another antisemite by defeating Ilhan Omar

‘Time is money’: White House targets chatbots, hold times, and other corporate hassles

Arizona primary shows signs GOP voters warming to early voting

‘Never’ Harris: Border Patrol agents divulge how they feel about Kamala

In case you missed it

Someone on Trump’s campaign needs to review security protocols

Questions about Walz’s military record aren’t going away

There are a handful of high-profile primary contests left this week

For your radar

Biden has nothing on his public schedule. He and first lady Jill Biden will leave Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, at 8 a.m. to return to the White House. 

Harris has nothing on her public schedule. She will record video remarks for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees’ 46th International Convention.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will hold the press briefing at 2 p.m.

, Back by populist demand — tax hikes?  President Joe Biden made it a point to come into the White House and, like Donald Trump before him, systematically dismantle the legacy of the man who was leaving office. That promise has been a mixed bag — Biden has kept most of Trump’s tariffs on China in place, he’s struggling to push through his Title IX rewrite, and his border policy has been sporadic. One area in which he has struggled to make any headway has been taxes.  Trump’s “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” more commonly referred to as the “Trump tax cuts,” that lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% hasn’t gone anywhere. The stickiness of the cuts is down to it getting passed through both chambers of Congress and being signed into law in 2017. Presidents have a lot of power, though their authority stops at being able to overturn law unilaterally.  It isn’t going to happen on Biden’s watch, but those tax cuts are set to expire in 2025, and as it stands, it’s not clear how Congress is going to address the looming “tax cliff.” That’s what we are examining this week with our series, and Economics and Business Reporter Zachary Halaschak started us off with a rundown of why the corporate tax rate could pose such a problem for Republicans in particular.  “The 2017 Republican tax overhaul lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% — and unlike the changes made to individual and estate tax, that cut is permanent in law. Yet the rise of populism in the United States and the demands of international tax competition have coincided to cast doubt on the stability of corporate taxation,” Zachary wrote. “Accordingly, the outcome of the 2024 elections and control of the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate will determine how the corporate tax rate is altered in broader talks about taxation and spending.”  “It was Republicans who lowered the rate, but now different factions of the party might seek to change it,” he wrote.  Trump is staying on board with his plan to cut taxes for corporations and for individuals. So far, he has promised to lower the corporate tax rate even further to 15%. Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t taken a clear position, though Zachary pointed out the Biden administration has argued the rate needs to go back up to somewhere near 28%, which might not be high enough to soothe the left wing of the Democratic Party.  Interestingly, for Republicans, the top of their ticket is of two minds on what to do about what might be Trump’s signature policy achievement. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) has said the rate shouldn’t be cut any further, putting him in soft opposition to Trump.  Should Harris and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) win and manage to pull downballot Democrats in House and Senate races with them to achieve a trifecta of federal control, letting the cuts expire and raising the rate shouldn’t be a heavy lift.  The more opaque scenario involves a Trump-Vance win, with the president facing opposition from his vice president and a populist contingent of lawmakers who are skeptical of corporations’ patriotism and would be happy to trade increased corporate taxes in return for cutting individual rates.  Hiking the rate has the backing of conservative intellectuals outside of Congress, too.  “I think there is obviously a huge fiscal crisis, and conservatives are recognizing that we’re going to need to do something about it,” Oren Cass, the chief economist of American Compass, told Zachary. “And so, in general, I think there is a much greater openness to considering raising revenue than there has been in the past, and then the question is: Where should that come from?” Click here to read more about the looming fight for the future of the corporate tax rate. Riding Harris’s coattails Democratic excitement about having a new principal at the top of the presidential ticket has turned a presidential race into a true toss-up. Just as important for the party, it has emboldened depressed voters about the need to show up on Election Day for downballot candidates, too.  Republicans taking back the Senate should almost be a lock. They don’t have to defend any competitive seats this cycle and can focus their resources on going on offense in seven states that have seats up for grabs — Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Four of those contests are rated as “toss-ups” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and three are “lean Democratic.”  Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is trying to make the “likely Democratic” contest in Maryland competitive and force Democrats to draw resources away from more intense fights.  Most of the states in play are important for the presidential and Senate contests. In Wisconsin, Harris taking over for Biden might be enough to push both elections to the left, Senate Reporter Ramsey Touchberry wrote for us this morning.  Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) is running for her third term. She isn’t facing any Democratic challenger in her primary contest on Tuesday. She will likely face off against real estate developer and banker Eric Hovde in November. Hovde is the National Republican Senatorial Committee favorite and is expected to walk to victory over Charles Barman and Rejani Raveendran tomorrow.  While Hovde has his own set of problems — Democrats have been painting him as a “carpetbagger” due to his ties to California — Baldwin’s chances for victory might come down more to the strength of Harris than the weaknesses of her opponent.  “It was tough when the vibe around the top of the ticket wasn’t great,” Baldwin campaign spokesman Andrew Mamo told Ramsey. “But the vibe around the top of the ticket right now is fantastic, and we are seeing more volunteers, more grassroots contributions, more people willing to knock on doors.” Baldwin had been avoiding making public appearances with Biden when he came into town but has appeared twice with Harris in the three-odd weeks since she took the mantle.  “Very, very exciting,” Baldwin recently told the Washington Examiner after attending a rally with Harris. “I feel like it’s a new beginning to the campaign.” Hovde and Republicans don’t appear to mind Harris taking over, regardless of the initial boost she is given Baldwin. Their plan is to tie Baldwin to the Biden-Harris administration as closely as possible.  “She voted for every single word of the Biden-Harris economic agenda that’s put us onto the brink of a recession,” a source close to Hovde told Ramsey of Baldwin. “But what’s different now, too, is you add to that the far-left agendas of not only the vice president but also her running mate.” Click here to read more about the highly anticipated fight in Wisconsin. New from us Democratic voters can evict another antisemite by defeating Ilhan Omar ‘Time is money’: White House targets chatbots, hold times, and other corporate hassles Arizona primary shows signs GOP voters warming to early voting ‘Never’ Harris: Border Patrol agents divulge how they feel about Kamala In case you missed it Someone on Trump’s campaign needs to review security protocols Questions about Walz’s military record aren’t going away There are a handful of high-profile primary contests left this week For your radar Biden has nothing on his public schedule. He and first lady Jill Biden will leave Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, at 8 a.m. to return to the White House.  Harris has nothing on her public schedule. She will record video remarks for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees’ 46th International Convention. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will hold the press briefing at 2 p.m., , , https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/donald-trump-corporate-tax.webp, Washington Examiner, Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-favicon-32×32.png, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feed/, Max Thornberry,

Biden’s legacy protections

President Joe Biden hasn’t spent the last 3 1/2 years expecting to spend his last six months in office scrambling to protect his legacy. Until three weeks ago, he was confident he was returning as his party’s standard-bearer and appeared confident in his ability to defeat former President Donald Trump again. 

The ground has shifted, and while Vice President Kamala Harris has enjoyed a wave of excitement, buoyed by her announcement yesterday that she selected left-wing favorite Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as her running mate, the Biden administration is covering its bases to protect against a Trump overhaul in case he wins in November. 

There is only so much power a former president can flex over his successor. Of course, that authority goes up when one man is replaced by someone else from his party. But if Trump stomps his way back into the White House, Biden and Co. are worried he will systematically tear down the apparatus of government. 

This week, we are examining how the Biden administration is taking proactive steps to insulate employees, institutions, and operations from a second Trump term. This morning, Senior Investigations Reporter Barnini Chakraborty took a look at how the government, from the White House to Congress, is working to “Trump-proof” science. 

Most of what happened in Trump’s first three years as president was wiped out by the chaotic, fatal, scrambling events of 2020 and the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic. The once-in-a-generation virus wiped out more than 1 million people in the United States alone. We all tuned into erratic presidential press conferences that swung from dire warnings to statements of encouragement that we just needed to get through the next two weeks and the spread would stop. 

As weeks dragged into months, a feeling of disdain began to creep in, and there was a loss of trust in institutions, in large part led by Trump and his feud with Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was the country’s leading expert on infectious diseases and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Fights between the president and Fauci spooked scientists and put them on guard about what another Trump term could mean for their careers and research. 

Jennifer Jones, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Barnini that while “there is always an urgent need to defend science,” there was an uptick in dissatisfied scientists during the previous administration. 

“I just can’t stress enough how our daily lives depend on good, independent science, free of political interference,” she said.

Pushing back on “political interference” can happen in several different ways. 

One effort that stretches beyond protections for scientists and doctors is to fight the “Schedule F” classification Trump tried to institute on his way out. The executive order would have reclassified thousands of government officials and employees in a way that would allow him, as the president, to fire them directly. Skeptics of the plan warned it would lead to tens of thousands of people being fired if they stepped out of line or showed disloyalty to the president. 

The executive order was tossed out by Biden, but there is a concern among scientists that a second Trump term would begin with a codified version of the executive order. 

Click here to read more about how the Biden administration is trying to “Trump-proof” science.

About last night

Primaries after Super Tuesday don’t always feel electric. If you aren’t going out to cast a ballot, it’s easy to forget that races to determine November contests other than the White House are still playing out and have major implications on what the country will look like in January. 

The entire House of Representatives is due for a shakeup, and control of the Senate is coming down to roughly seven states where Republicans are going on offense. Even in races that aren’t set to be competitive in the general election can rattle the way House and Senate leaders are preparing to govern their coalitions. 

Missouri, Washington, Michigan, and Kansas held primary contests last night, and the results told us a little more about what 2025 is going to look like. Here are three results you will want to catch up on. 

‘Squad’ squashed

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) joined Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) as the second “Squad” member to lose a primary contest this year. The hard-left Bush had been swimming against the tide with St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell telling voters they could have all of her progressive economic policies without the headache of her anti-Israel views if they sent him to Congress instead. 

Bush had a tough hill to climb even if she wasn’t the target of millions of dollars in spending from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its PAC spending $8 million to support Bell. She has made waves with her criticisms of Israel before and during its war with Hamas. But she was in trouble with voters for plenty of other reasons, too.

Bell beat Bush by about 5 points in unofficial returns last night. Missouri’s 1st Congressional District is rated solid Democratic by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, meaning Bell will likely cruise to victory in November. 

Washington washes its gubernatorial slate clean

Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA) is the longest-serving governor in the country and has been at the helm in Washington state since 2013. He announced he wasn’t going to run for reelection last year, giving Republicans a spark of hope they could wrest control of the state back from Democrats. 

Washington hasn’t had a GOP governor in nearly 40 years, but former Rep. Dave Reichert, a Republican, is going to try to end that run when he faces off against Attorney General Bob Ferguson in November. 

Ferguson ran away with the win Tuesday night, raking in roughly 47% of the vote in an open primary that had dozens of candidates. Reichert picked up about 27% — far off Ferguson’s pace but well ahead of the third-place winner, who had 9%. The top two vote-getters move on to the general election in November. 

Inslee has made a name for himself as a climate warrior who tried to run for president in 2020 on the strength of his resume on the subject. 

Michigan blowout

Republicans didn’t think they had much of a chance of flipping a Senate seat in Michigan as long as Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) was occupying it. Like the governor’s mansion in Washington, though, a looming retirement gave the GOP hope it could make a play for a seat it hasn’t held since 2001. 

Tuesday night’s contest cemented what November’s battle will look like. 

Former Rep. Mike Rogers trounced the Republican field, hoovering up 70% of the vote when just 6% of votes were tallied. Former Rep. Justin Amash, who was a Republican before he left the party to become a libertarian and returned so he could run in the primary, was a far-off second place with 12% of the vote. 

As expected, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) cruised to victory over Hill Harper with 75% of the vote. 

Forecasters project the margin of victory in November to be as small as they were wide on Tuesday. Slotkin and Rogers are known entities in the state, though neither has run a statewide campaign, which could open them up to new vulnerabilities. 

Slotkin has a minor edge in polling and a huge jump in fundraising. Rogers has done fine for himself, bringing in $5.4 million, but is trailing behind Slotkin’s powerhouse figure of $24 million. 

New from us

Harris-Walz is the most radical ticket in American history

Tim Walz’s complicated record on crime comes back to haunt him

Minnesota’s Walz seeks to take on ‘Scranton Joe’ mantle in the Midwest

Kamala Harris donated last year to defund police group backing DC ‘sanctuary city’ law

Josh Hawley turns once-blue Missouri Senate seat into ruby-red refuge

Pennsylvania Democrats warm to Walz after Shapiro VP snub

In case you missed it 

Nancy Pelosi is spilling secrets

Trump is dancing around a debate but is sitting down for an interview with Elon Musk

Andy Ogles is a little harder to get a hold of when he’s out of the office

For your radar

Biden doesn’t have anything on his public schedule. 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will hold a press briefing at 2 p.m. 

Harris will travel to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, for a campaign event at 2:20 p.m. and to Detroit, Michigan, for a campaign event at 6:40 p.m. 

2024-08-07 12:16:00, http://s.wordpress.com/mshots/v1/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonexaminer.com%2Fnews%2Fcampaigns%2F3113391%2Fwake-up-washington-examiner-biden-trump-proof-science-legacy-three-things-primaries%2F?w=600&h=450, Biden’s legacy protections President Joe Biden hasn’t spent the last 3 1/2 years expecting to spend his last six months in office scrambling to protect his legacy. Until three weeks ago, he was confident he was returning as his party’s standard-bearer and appeared confident in his ability to defeat former President Donald Trump again.  The,

Biden’s legacy protections

President Joe Biden hasn’t spent the last 3 1/2 years expecting to spend his last six months in office scrambling to protect his legacy. Until three weeks ago, he was confident he was returning as his party’s standard-bearer and appeared confident in his ability to defeat former President Donald Trump again. 

The ground has shifted, and while Vice President Kamala Harris has enjoyed a wave of excitement, buoyed by her announcement yesterday that she selected left-wing favorite Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as her running mate, the Biden administration is covering its bases to protect against a Trump overhaul in case he wins in November. 

There is only so much power a former president can flex over his successor. Of course, that authority goes up when one man is replaced by someone else from his party. But if Trump stomps his way back into the White House, Biden and Co. are worried he will systematically tear down the apparatus of government. 

This week, we are examining how the Biden administration is taking proactive steps to insulate employees, institutions, and operations from a second Trump term. This morning, Senior Investigations Reporter Barnini Chakraborty took a look at how the government, from the White House to Congress, is working to “Trump-proof” science. 

Most of what happened in Trump’s first three years as president was wiped out by the chaotic, fatal, scrambling events of 2020 and the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic. The once-in-a-generation virus wiped out more than 1 million people in the United States alone. We all tuned into erratic presidential press conferences that swung from dire warnings to statements of encouragement that we just needed to get through the next two weeks and the spread would stop. 

As weeks dragged into months, a feeling of disdain began to creep in, and there was a loss of trust in institutions, in large part led by Trump and his feud with Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was the country’s leading expert on infectious diseases and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Fights between the president and Fauci spooked scientists and put them on guard about what another Trump term could mean for their careers and research. 

Jennifer Jones, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Barnini that while “there is always an urgent need to defend science,” there was an uptick in dissatisfied scientists during the previous administration. 

“I just can’t stress enough how our daily lives depend on good, independent science, free of political interference,” she said.

Pushing back on “political interference” can happen in several different ways. 

One effort that stretches beyond protections for scientists and doctors is to fight the “Schedule F” classification Trump tried to institute on his way out. The executive order would have reclassified thousands of government officials and employees in a way that would allow him, as the president, to fire them directly. Skeptics of the plan warned it would lead to tens of thousands of people being fired if they stepped out of line or showed disloyalty to the president. 

The executive order was tossed out by Biden, but there is a concern among scientists that a second Trump term would begin with a codified version of the executive order. 

Click here to read more about how the Biden administration is trying to “Trump-proof” science.

About last night

Primaries after Super Tuesday don’t always feel electric. If you aren’t going out to cast a ballot, it’s easy to forget that races to determine November contests other than the White House are still playing out and have major implications on what the country will look like in January. 

The entire House of Representatives is due for a shakeup, and control of the Senate is coming down to roughly seven states where Republicans are going on offense. Even in races that aren’t set to be competitive in the general election can rattle the way House and Senate leaders are preparing to govern their coalitions. 

Missouri, Washington, Michigan, and Kansas held primary contests last night, and the results told us a little more about what 2025 is going to look like. Here are three results you will want to catch up on. 

‘Squad’ squashed

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) joined Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) as the second “Squad” member to lose a primary contest this year. The hard-left Bush had been swimming against the tide with St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell telling voters they could have all of her progressive economic policies without the headache of her anti-Israel views if they sent him to Congress instead. 

Bush had a tough hill to climb even if she wasn’t the target of millions of dollars in spending from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its PAC spending $8 million to support Bell. She has made waves with her criticisms of Israel before and during its war with Hamas. But she was in trouble with voters for plenty of other reasons, too.

Bell beat Bush by about 5 points in unofficial returns last night. Missouri’s 1st Congressional District is rated solid Democratic by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, meaning Bell will likely cruise to victory in November. 

Washington washes its gubernatorial slate clean

Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA) is the longest-serving governor in the country and has been at the helm in Washington state since 2013. He announced he wasn’t going to run for reelection last year, giving Republicans a spark of hope they could wrest control of the state back from Democrats. 

Washington hasn’t had a GOP governor in nearly 40 years, but former Rep. Dave Reichert, a Republican, is going to try to end that run when he faces off against Attorney General Bob Ferguson in November. 

Ferguson ran away with the win Tuesday night, raking in roughly 47% of the vote in an open primary that had dozens of candidates. Reichert picked up about 27% — far off Ferguson’s pace but well ahead of the third-place winner, who had 9%. The top two vote-getters move on to the general election in November. 

Inslee has made a name for himself as a climate warrior who tried to run for president in 2020 on the strength of his resume on the subject. 

Michigan blowout

Republicans didn’t think they had much of a chance of flipping a Senate seat in Michigan as long as Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) was occupying it. Like the governor’s mansion in Washington, though, a looming retirement gave the GOP hope it could make a play for a seat it hasn’t held since 2001. 

Tuesday night’s contest cemented what November’s battle will look like. 

Former Rep. Mike Rogers trounced the Republican field, hoovering up 70% of the vote when just 6% of votes were tallied. Former Rep. Justin Amash, who was a Republican before he left the party to become a libertarian and returned so he could run in the primary, was a far-off second place with 12% of the vote. 

As expected, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) cruised to victory over Hill Harper with 75% of the vote. 

Forecasters project the margin of victory in November to be as small as they were wide on Tuesday. Slotkin and Rogers are known entities in the state, though neither has run a statewide campaign, which could open them up to new vulnerabilities. 

Slotkin has a minor edge in polling and a huge jump in fundraising. Rogers has done fine for himself, bringing in $5.4 million, but is trailing behind Slotkin’s powerhouse figure of $24 million. 

New from us

Harris-Walz is the most radical ticket in American history

Tim Walz’s complicated record on crime comes back to haunt him

Minnesota’s Walz seeks to take on ‘Scranton Joe’ mantle in the Midwest

Kamala Harris donated last year to defund police group backing DC ‘sanctuary city’ law

Josh Hawley turns once-blue Missouri Senate seat into ruby-red refuge

Pennsylvania Democrats warm to Walz after Shapiro VP snub

In case you missed it 

Nancy Pelosi is spilling secrets

Trump is dancing around a debate but is sitting down for an interview with Elon Musk

Andy Ogles is a little harder to get a hold of when he’s out of the office

For your radar

Biden doesn’t have anything on his public schedule. 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will hold a press briefing at 2 p.m. 

Harris will travel to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, for a campaign event at 2:20 p.m. and to Detroit, Michigan, for a campaign event at 6:40 p.m. 

, Biden’s legacy protections President Joe Biden hasn’t spent the last 3 1/2 years expecting to spend his last six months in office scrambling to protect his legacy. Until three weeks ago, he was confident he was returning as his party’s standard-bearer and appeared confident in his ability to defeat former President Donald Trump again.  The ground has shifted, and while Vice President Kamala Harris has enjoyed a wave of excitement, buoyed by her announcement yesterday that she selected left-wing favorite Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as her running mate, the Biden administration is covering its bases to protect against a Trump overhaul in case he wins in November.  There is only so much power a former president can flex over his successor. Of course, that authority goes up when one man is replaced by someone else from his party. But if Trump stomps his way back into the White House, Biden and Co. are worried he will systematically tear down the apparatus of government.  This week, we are examining how the Biden administration is taking proactive steps to insulate employees, institutions, and operations from a second Trump term. This morning, Senior Investigations Reporter Barnini Chakraborty took a look at how the government, from the White House to Congress, is working to “Trump-proof” science.  Most of what happened in Trump’s first three years as president was wiped out by the chaotic, fatal, scrambling events of 2020 and the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic. The once-in-a-generation virus wiped out more than 1 million people in the United States alone. We all tuned into erratic presidential press conferences that swung from dire warnings to statements of encouragement that we just needed to get through the next two weeks and the spread would stop.  As weeks dragged into months, a feeling of disdain began to creep in, and there was a loss of trust in institutions, in large part led by Trump and his feud with Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was the country’s leading expert on infectious diseases and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fights between the president and Fauci spooked scientists and put them on guard about what another Trump term could mean for their careers and research.  Jennifer Jones , director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Barnini that while “there is always an urgent need to defend science,” there was an uptick in dissatisfied scientists during the previous administration.  “I just can’t stress enough how our daily lives depend on good, independent science, free of political interference,” she said. Pushing back on “political interference” can happen in several different ways.  One effort that stretches beyond protections for scientists and doctors is to fight the “Schedule F” classification Trump tried to institute on his way out. The executive order would have reclassified thousands of government officials and employees in a way that would allow him, as the president, to fire them directly. Skeptics of the plan warned it would lead to tens of thousands of people being fired if they stepped out of line or showed disloyalty to the president.  The executive order was tossed out by Biden, but there is a concern among scientists that a second Trump term would begin with a codified version of the executive order.  Click here to read more about how the Biden administration is trying to “Trump-proof” science. About last night Primaries after Super Tuesday don’t always feel electric. If you aren’t going out to cast a ballot, it’s easy to forget that races to determine November contests other than the White House are still playing out and have major implications on what the country will look like in January.  The entire House of Representatives is due for a shakeup, and control of the Senate is coming down to roughly seven states where Republicans are going on offense. Even in races that aren’t set to be competitive in the general election can rattle the way House and Senate leaders are preparing to govern their coalitions.  Missouri, Washington, Michigan, and Kansas held primary contests last night, and the results told us a little more about what 2025 is going to look like. Here are three results you will want to catch up on.  ‘Squad’ squashed Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) joined Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) as the second “Squad” member to lose a primary contest this year. The hard-left Bush had been swimming against the tide with St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell telling voters they could have all of her progressive economic policies without the headache of her anti-Israel views if they sent him to Congress instead.  Bush had a tough hill to climb even if she wasn’t the target of millions of dollars in spending from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its PAC spending $8 million to support Bell. She has made waves with her criticisms of Israel before and during its war with Hamas. But she was in trouble with voters for plenty of other reasons, too. Bell beat Bush by about 5 points in unofficial returns last night. Missouri’s 1st Congressional District is rated solid Democratic by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, meaning Bell will likely cruise to victory in November.  Washington washes its gubernatorial slate clean Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA) is the longest-serving governor in the country and has been at the helm in Washington state since 2013. He announced he wasn’t going to run for reelection last year, giving Republicans a spark of hope they could wrest control of the state back from Democrats.  Washington hasn’t had a GOP governor in nearly 40 years, but former Rep. Dave Reichert, a Republican, is going to try to end that run when he faces off against Attorney General Bob Ferguson in November.  Ferguson ran away with the win Tuesday night, raking in roughly 47% of the vote in an open primary that had dozens of candidates. Reichert picked up about 27% — far off Ferguson’s pace but well ahead of the third-place winner, who had 9%. The top two vote-getters move on to the general election in November.  Inslee has made a name for himself as a climate warrior who tried to run for president in 2020 on the strength of his resume on the subject.  Michigan blowout Republicans didn’t think they had much of a chance of flipping a Senate seat in Michigan as long as Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) was occupying it. Like the governor’s mansion in Washington, though, a looming retirement gave the GOP hope it could make a play for a seat it hasn’t held since 2001.  Tuesday night’s contest cemented what November’s battle will look like.  Former Rep. Mike Rogers trounced the Republican field, hoovering up 70% of the vote when just 6% of votes were tallied. Former Rep. Justin Amash, who was a Republican before he left the party to become a libertarian and returned so he could run in the primary, was a far-off second place with 12% of the vote.  As expected, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) cruised to victory over Hill Harper with 75% of the vote.  Forecasters project the margin of victory in November to be as small as they were wide on Tuesday. Slotkin and Rogers are known entities in the state, though neither has run a statewide campaign, which could open them up to new vulnerabilities.  Slotkin has a minor edge in polling and a huge jump in fundraising. Rogers has done fine for himself, bringing in $5.4 million, but is trailing behind Slotkin’s powerhouse figure of $24 million.  New from us Harris-Walz is the most radical ticket in American history Tim Walz’s complicated record on crime comes back to haunt him Minnesota’s Walz seeks to take on ‘Scranton Joe’ mantle in the Midwest Kamala Harris donated last year to defund police group backing DC ‘sanctuary city’ law Josh Hawley turns once-blue Missouri Senate seat into ruby-red refuge Pennsylvania Democrats warm to Walz after Shapiro VP snub In case you missed it  Nancy Pelosi is spilling secrets Trump is dancing around a debate but is sitting down for an interview with Elon Musk Andy Ogles is a little harder to get a hold of when he’s out of the office For your radar Biden doesn’t have anything on his public schedule.  White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will hold a press briefing at 2 p.m.  Harris will travel to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, for a campaign event at 2:20 p.m. and to Detroit, Michigan, for a campaign event at 6:40 p.m. , , , https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/joe-biden-legacy.webp, Washington Examiner, Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-favicon-32×32.png, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feed/, Max Thornberry,

Georgia on his mind

Former President Donald Trump is having a hard time dropping his grievances with Georgia. Four years after his baseless attempts to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory there, Trump doesn’t appear to have forgiven Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) for his failure to “find” enough votes to put the former president back in the White House. 

In the meantime, Vice President Kamala Harris is surging. She has energized Democrats and made Georgia, which looked like it was trending back into safe Republican territory, a battleground once again. She has stumped through Atlanta and will return this week on her tour, introducing her running mate, who she will announce this morning. 

Winning Georgia in 2024 doesn’t appear to be at the front of Trump’s mind, though, White House Reporter Haisten Willis wrote for us this morning. Over the weekend, Trump fired an attack on Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who combined to deny him inroads to challenge the 2020 election and have been steady critics of his continued efforts to disparage the electoral process in Georgia. 

“Brian Kemp should focus his efforts on fighting crime, not fighting unity and the Republican Party,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Aug. 3. “He should be seeking unity, not retribution, especially against the man that got him the nomination through endorsement and, without whom, he could never have beaten Stacey Abrams.”

Kemp didn’t support Trump in his state’s primary in March, though he said he would “support the ticket” in November. However, it’s not clear if Trump’s attacks on him and his family could be enough to change his mind. 

“My focus is on winning this November and saving our country from Kamala Harris and the Democrats — not engaging in petty personal insults, attacking fellow Republicans, or dwelling on the past,” Kemp responded to Trump’s Truth Social posts online. “You should do the same, Mr. President, and leave my family out of it.”

Georgia Republicans are likely to follow Kemp’s lead. The governor is incredibly popular at home. He smashed Stacey Abrams 53.4%-45.9% in 2022 after eking out a win over her in 2018 — with the help of Trump’s endorsement. 

Abrams herself, of course, has a Trumpian history of calling into question election results in Georgia. 

Fending off attacks on the security of the state’s elections, Georgia Republicans are growing weary of the focus on past contests instead of looking ahead to what they want to accomplish. 

“The focus needs to be on defining the Democratic nominee and defeating her. Those are the two ‘Ds’ — define her and defeat her,” longtime Georgia Republican operative Alec Poitevint told Haisten. “It’d be OK with me if we do it in a dominating fashion, so three ‘Ds’ is all right with me. That’s what I’m telling people.”

And Trump fighting with the popular Kemp isn’t likely to win him any new voters while driving away fans of the governor. 

“Trump is operating in grievance mode,” University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock told Haisten. “If he were operating in ‘expand your support’ mode, he wouldn’t be doing that. There is a component of the electorate who will vote for both Trump and Kemp, but many may be more enthusiastic for Kemp than Trump. … I don’t know that it drives those people into the Harris camp, but it hurts Trump if they decide to just skip the presidential ticket.”

Polling in the three weeks since Harris took the mantle from Biden is sparse, but the Real Clear Politics aggregate of polls in Georgia shows Trump clinging to a 0.8-point lead, with one poll showing Harris in the lead. 

Click here to read more about Trump’s battles with Georgia Republicans.

Harris on recession watch

Monday wasn’t a good day to check in on your 401(k). Harris might have been fortunate she was cloistered in the Situation Room meeting with Biden and the National Security Council rather than stumping as financial markets were roiled by sell-offs and hair-on-fire concerns about an economic downturn. 

Yesterday’s madness was preceded by a concerning jobs report that showed the economy adding just 114,000 jobs in July and unemployment inching up to 4.3%. 

Economics and Business Reporter Zachary Halaschak had a good rundown yesterday walking us through the ups and, mostly, downs of the market response to Friday’s jobs report. This morning, he is up with a piece looking at what Monday’s madness could mean for Harris — and it doesn’t look good. 

“While most economists still think a recession is unlikely, a lackluster employment report for July, which saw unemployment ticking up for the fourth month in a row, plus a massive stock sell-off on Monday, is raising concerns that the economy may quickly turn south,” he wrote. “Such a downturn would be a political bunker buster for the Harris campaign, which has gained steam in recent days.” 

Republicans trying to tie Harris to the losses of the Biden-Harris administration have plenty of ammunition to use. They have gleefully used the vice president’s role as “border czar” to trash the huge spike in illegal immigration and general chaos at the southern border. 

But there are fewer concrete ties between Harris and the economy to use than her efforts, or lack thereof, at the border. 

In an election year, that might not matter. Voters have been voicing their concerns about the economy under Biden for years, which has been a driver in GOP optimism it can storm back into the White House — and probably win the Senate while expanding its majority in the House. 

Harris being in power, and running for more, while the economy roars would be good for her campaign. The same can be said for her in the opposite direction, too. 

“If this isn’t just a blip and becomes a broader and more severe economic problem, I think it dooms Harris,” Jason Roe, a veteran Republican consultant, told Zachary on Monday.

Possibly the most concerning item to come out of Friday’s jobs report was an unemployment rate-related recession indicator. No president wants to hear economists or voters talking about recessions, possible recessions, or recession indicators. Presidential candidates attached to the administration in the White House will like those conversations even less. 

“The Friday jobs report triggered a major recession indicator, known as the Sahm rule, which is when the three-month moving average of the unemployment rate rises half a percentage point relative to its minimum point over the past year,” Zachary wrote. “The Sahm rule has signaled the start of all post-war recessions.” 

While there isn’t a single government entity that will declare a recession, voters having another downturn in their minds could mean Harris is starting and ending her quest for the presidency in the worst-case scenario. 

Click here to read more about what Monday’s downturn means for Harris.

Wild, wild, West of maps

In case the rules governing how district maps can be drawn weren’t confusing enough, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown a new wrench in the gears. Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana have all been subjects of questions about how Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has been applied to their district maps in recent years. 

Now add Texas to that list. 

Supreme Court Reporter Kaelan Deese took a deep dive into the Aug. 1 decision that “curtails what conservative critics argue is the Democrats’ misuse of the Voting Rights Act to create voting districts favoring their party in Galveston, Texas. This ruling has the potential to reshape the political landscape not just in the Lone Star State but also in Louisiana and Mississippi, states within the jurisdiction of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — potentially shifting numerous seats from Democrat to Republican.” 

Section 2 of the VRA is relatively straightforward — ”Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in one of the language minority groups identified in Section 4(f)(2) of the Act.”

Where it gets complicated is in situations like the one in Galveston, where a minority-majority district was created using a coalition of minority groups. 

“Galveston County, with a population that is 58% white, 22.5% Hispanic, and 12.5% black, had previously drawn a coalition district combining black and Hispanic populations,” Kaelan wrote. “This district was represented by a black Democrat until the 2021 redistricting, which eliminated the coalition district, and prompted lawsuits from the NAACP and the Justice Department, arguing that coalition districts are mandated by the VRA.” 

The 5th Circuit’s ruling doesn’t gut the ability for states to create minority-majority districts, which tend to favor Democrats, but it does put restrictions on the way the populations are determined and how the lines are drawn. 

“The implications of this ruling are significant,” Kaelan wrote. “It effectively stops the use of the VRA to create coalition districts aimed at bolstering Democratic representation in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and the potential for the Biden administration to appeal now to the Supreme Court has been elevated.” 

Click here to read more about what redistricting could look like in the future.

New from us

The exodus from Kamala Harris’s California continues

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Kamala Harris is going down in history again

The Secret Service denied reports it considered destroying cocaine found in the White House

Google cannot pass go, it cannot collect $200

For your radar

Biden doesn’t have any public events on his schedule.

Harris is set to announce her running mate any time Tuesday ahead of a rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at 5:30 p.m.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will brief reporters at 1:30 p.m. 

2024-08-06 12:22:00, http://s.wordpress.com/mshots/v1/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonexaminer.com%2Fnews%2Fcampaigns%2F3111754%2Fwake-up-trump-fights-georgia-harris-recession-watch-redistricting-wrinkle%2F?w=600&h=450, Georgia on his mind Former President Donald Trump is having a hard time dropping his grievances with Georgia. Four years after his baseless attempts to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory there, Trump doesn’t appear to have forgiven Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) for his failure to “find” enough votes to put the former president back in,

Georgia on his mind

Former President Donald Trump is having a hard time dropping his grievances with Georgia. Four years after his baseless attempts to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory there, Trump doesn’t appear to have forgiven Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) for his failure to “find” enough votes to put the former president back in the White House. 

In the meantime, Vice President Kamala Harris is surging. She has energized Democrats and made Georgia, which looked like it was trending back into safe Republican territory, a battleground once again. She has stumped through Atlanta and will return this week on her tour, introducing her running mate, who she will announce this morning. 

Winning Georgia in 2024 doesn’t appear to be at the front of Trump’s mind, though, White House Reporter Haisten Willis wrote for us this morning. Over the weekend, Trump fired an attack on Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who combined to deny him inroads to challenge the 2020 election and have been steady critics of his continued efforts to disparage the electoral process in Georgia. 

“Brian Kemp should focus his efforts on fighting crime, not fighting unity and the Republican Party,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Aug. 3. “He should be seeking unity, not retribution, especially against the man that got him the nomination through endorsement and, without whom, he could never have beaten Stacey Abrams.”

Kemp didn’t support Trump in his state’s primary in March, though he said he would “support the ticket” in November. However, it’s not clear if Trump’s attacks on him and his family could be enough to change his mind. 

“My focus is on winning this November and saving our country from Kamala Harris and the Democrats — not engaging in petty personal insults, attacking fellow Republicans, or dwelling on the past,” Kemp responded to Trump’s Truth Social posts online. “You should do the same, Mr. President, and leave my family out of it.”

Georgia Republicans are likely to follow Kemp’s lead. The governor is incredibly popular at home. He smashed Stacey Abrams 53.4%-45.9% in 2022 after eking out a win over her in 2018 — with the help of Trump’s endorsement. 

Abrams herself, of course, has a Trumpian history of calling into question election results in Georgia. 

Fending off attacks on the security of the state’s elections, Georgia Republicans are growing weary of the focus on past contests instead of looking ahead to what they want to accomplish. 

“The focus needs to be on defining the Democratic nominee and defeating her. Those are the two ‘Ds’ — define her and defeat her,” longtime Georgia Republican operative Alec Poitevint told Haisten. “It’d be OK with me if we do it in a dominating fashion, so three ‘Ds’ is all right with me. That’s what I’m telling people.”

And Trump fighting with the popular Kemp isn’t likely to win him any new voters while driving away fans of the governor. 

“Trump is operating in grievance mode,” University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock told Haisten. “If he were operating in ‘expand your support’ mode, he wouldn’t be doing that. There is a component of the electorate who will vote for both Trump and Kemp, but many may be more enthusiastic for Kemp than Trump. … I don’t know that it drives those people into the Harris camp, but it hurts Trump if they decide to just skip the presidential ticket.”

Polling in the three weeks since Harris took the mantle from Biden is sparse, but the Real Clear Politics aggregate of polls in Georgia shows Trump clinging to a 0.8-point lead, with one poll showing Harris in the lead. 

Click here to read more about Trump’s battles with Georgia Republicans.

Harris on recession watch

Monday wasn’t a good day to check in on your 401(k). Harris might have been fortunate she was cloistered in the Situation Room meeting with Biden and the National Security Council rather than stumping as financial markets were roiled by sell-offs and hair-on-fire concerns about an economic downturn. 

Yesterday’s madness was preceded by a concerning jobs report that showed the economy adding just 114,000 jobs in July and unemployment inching up to 4.3%. 

Economics and Business Reporter Zachary Halaschak had a good rundown yesterday walking us through the ups and, mostly, downs of the market response to Friday’s jobs report. This morning, he is up with a piece looking at what Monday’s madness could mean for Harris — and it doesn’t look good. 

“While most economists still think a recession is unlikely, a lackluster employment report for July, which saw unemployment ticking up for the fourth month in a row, plus a massive stock sell-off on Monday, is raising concerns that the economy may quickly turn south,” he wrote. “Such a downturn would be a political bunker buster for the Harris campaign, which has gained steam in recent days.” 

Republicans trying to tie Harris to the losses of the Biden-Harris administration have plenty of ammunition to use. They have gleefully used the vice president’s role as “border czar” to trash the huge spike in illegal immigration and general chaos at the southern border. 

But there are fewer concrete ties between Harris and the economy to use than her efforts, or lack thereof, at the border. 

In an election year, that might not matter. Voters have been voicing their concerns about the economy under Biden for years, which has been a driver in GOP optimism it can storm back into the White House — and probably win the Senate while expanding its majority in the House. 

Harris being in power, and running for more, while the economy roars would be good for her campaign. The same can be said for her in the opposite direction, too. 

“If this isn’t just a blip and becomes a broader and more severe economic problem, I think it dooms Harris,” Jason Roe, a veteran Republican consultant, told Zachary on Monday.

Possibly the most concerning item to come out of Friday’s jobs report was an unemployment rate-related recession indicator. No president wants to hear economists or voters talking about recessions, possible recessions, or recession indicators. Presidential candidates attached to the administration in the White House will like those conversations even less. 

“The Friday jobs report triggered a major recession indicator, known as the Sahm rule, which is when the three-month moving average of the unemployment rate rises half a percentage point relative to its minimum point over the past year,” Zachary wrote. “The Sahm rule has signaled the start of all post-war recessions.” 

While there isn’t a single government entity that will declare a recession, voters having another downturn in their minds could mean Harris is starting and ending her quest for the presidency in the worst-case scenario. 

Click here to read more about what Monday’s downturn means for Harris.

Wild, wild, West of maps

In case the rules governing how district maps can be drawn weren’t confusing enough, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown a new wrench in the gears. Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana have all been subjects of questions about how Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has been applied to their district maps in recent years. 

Now add Texas to that list. 

Supreme Court Reporter Kaelan Deese took a deep dive into the Aug. 1 decision that “curtails what conservative critics argue is the Democrats’ misuse of the Voting Rights Act to create voting districts favoring their party in Galveston, Texas. This ruling has the potential to reshape the political landscape not just in the Lone Star State but also in Louisiana and Mississippi, states within the jurisdiction of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — potentially shifting numerous seats from Democrat to Republican.” 

Section 2 of the VRA is relatively straightforward — ”Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in one of the language minority groups identified in Section 4(f)(2) of the Act.”

Where it gets complicated is in situations like the one in Galveston, where a minority-majority district was created using a coalition of minority groups. 

“Galveston County, with a population that is 58% white, 22.5% Hispanic, and 12.5% black, had previously drawn a coalition district combining black and Hispanic populations,” Kaelan wrote. “This district was represented by a black Democrat until the 2021 redistricting, which eliminated the coalition district, and prompted lawsuits from the NAACP and the Justice Department, arguing that coalition districts are mandated by the VRA.” 

The 5th Circuit’s ruling doesn’t gut the ability for states to create minority-majority districts, which tend to favor Democrats, but it does put restrictions on the way the populations are determined and how the lines are drawn. 

“The implications of this ruling are significant,” Kaelan wrote. “It effectively stops the use of the VRA to create coalition districts aimed at bolstering Democratic representation in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and the potential for the Biden administration to appeal now to the Supreme Court has been elevated.” 

Click here to read more about what redistricting could look like in the future.

New from us

The exodus from Kamala Harris’s California continues

Has Harris peaked or is her best yet to come?

Billionaire falsely labeled Jewish by dark money group in ‘antisemitism’ dig

In case you missed it

Kamala Harris is going down in history again

The Secret Service denied reports it considered destroying cocaine found in the White House

Google cannot pass go, it cannot collect $200

For your radar

Biden doesn’t have any public events on his schedule.

Harris is set to announce her running mate any time Tuesday ahead of a rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at 5:30 p.m.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will brief reporters at 1:30 p.m. 

, Georgia on his mind Former President Donald Trump is having a hard time dropping his grievances with Georgia. Four years after his baseless attempts to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory there, Trump doesn’t appear to have forgiven Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) for his failure to “find” enough votes to put the former president back in the White House.  In the meantime, Vice President Kamala Harris is surging. She has energized Democrats and made Georgia, which looked like it was trending back into safe Republican territory, a battleground once again. She has stumped through Atlanta and will return this week on her tour, introducing her running mate, who she will announce this morning.  Winning Georgia in 2024 doesn’t appear to be at the front of Trump’s mind, though, White House Reporter Haisten Willis wrote for us this morning. Over the weekend, Trump fired an attack on Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who combined to deny him inroads to challenge the 2020 election and have been steady critics of his continued efforts to disparage the electoral process in Georgia.  “Brian Kemp should focus his efforts on fighting crime, not fighting unity and the Republican Party,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Aug. 3. “He should be seeking unity, not retribution, especially against the man that got him the nomination through endorsement and, without whom, he could never have beaten Stacey Abrams.” Kemp didn’t support Trump in his state’s primary in March, though he said he would “support the ticket” in November. However, it’s not clear if Trump’s attacks on him and his family could be enough to change his mind.  “My focus is on winning this November and saving our country from Kamala Harris and the Democrats — not engaging in petty personal insults, attacking fellow Republicans, or dwelling on the past,” Kemp responded to Trump’s Truth Social posts online. “You should do the same, Mr. President, and leave my family out of it.” Georgia Republicans are likely to follow Kemp’s lead. The governor is incredibly popular at home. He smashed Stacey Abrams 53.4%-45.9% in 2022 after eking out a win over her in 2018 — with the help of Trump’s endorsement.  Abrams herself, of course, has a Trumpian history of calling into question election results in Georgia.  Fending off attacks on the security of the state’s elections, Georgia Republicans are growing weary of the focus on past contests instead of looking ahead to what they want to accomplish.  “The focus needs to be on defining the Democratic nominee and defeating her. Those are the two ‘Ds’ — define her and defeat her,” longtime Georgia Republican operative Alec Poitevint told Haisten. “It’d be OK with me if we do it in a dominating fashion, so three ‘Ds’ is all right with me. That’s what I’m telling people.” And Trump fighting with the popular Kemp isn’t likely to win him any new voters while driving away fans of the governor.  “Trump is operating in grievance mode,” University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock told Haisten. “If he were operating in ‘expand your support’ mode, he wouldn’t be doing that. There is a component of the electorate who will vote for both Trump and Kemp, but many may be more enthusiastic for Kemp than Trump. … I don’t know that it drives those people into the Harris camp, but it hurts Trump if they decide to just skip the presidential ticket.” Polling in the three weeks since Harris took the mantle from Biden is sparse, but the Real Clear Politics aggregate of polls in Georgia shows Trump clinging to a 0.8-point lead, with one poll showing Harris in the lead.  Click here to read more about Trump’s battles with Georgia Republicans. Harris on recession watch Monday wasn’t a good day to check in on your 401(k). Harris might have been fortunate she was cloistered in the Situation Room meeting with Biden and the National Security Council rather than stumping as financial markets were roiled by sell-offs and hair-on-fire concerns about an economic downturn.  Yesterday’s madness was preceded by a concerning jobs report that showed the economy adding just 114,000 jobs in July and unemployment inching up to 4.3%.  Economics and Business Reporter Zachary Halaschak had a good rundown yesterday walking us through the ups and, mostly, downs of the market response to Friday’s jobs report. This morning, he is up with a piece looking at what Monday’s madness could mean for Harris — and it doesn’t look good.  “While most economists still think a recession is unlikely, a lackluster employment report for July, which saw unemployment ticking up for the fourth month in a row, plus a massive stock sell-off on Monday, is raising concerns that the economy may quickly turn south,” he wrote. “Such a downturn would be a political bunker buster for the Harris campaign, which has gained steam in recent days.”  Republicans trying to tie Harris to the losses of the Biden-Harris administration have plenty of ammunition to use. They have gleefully used the vice president’s role as “border czar” to trash the huge spike in illegal immigration and general chaos at the southern border.  But there are fewer concrete ties between Harris and the economy to use than her efforts, or lack thereof, at the border.  In an election year, that might not matter. Voters have been voicing their concerns about the economy under Biden for years, which has been a driver in GOP optimism it can storm back into the White House — and probably win the Senate while expanding its majority in the House.  Harris being in power, and running for more, while the economy roars would be good for her campaign. The same can be said for her in the opposite direction, too.  “If this isn’t just a blip and becomes a broader and more severe economic problem, I think it dooms Harris,” Jason Roe, a veteran Republican consultant, told Zachary on Monday. Possibly the most concerning item to come out of Friday’s jobs report was an unemployment rate-related recession indicator. No president wants to hear economists or voters talking about recessions, possible recessions, or recession indicators. Presidential candidates attached to the administration in the White House will like those conversations even less.  “The Friday jobs report triggered a major recession indicator, known as the Sahm rule, which is when the three-month moving average of the unemployment rate rises half a percentage point relative to its minimum point over the past year,” Zachary wrote. “The Sahm rule has signaled the start of all post-war recessions.”  While there isn’t a single government entity that will declare a recession, voters having another downturn in their minds could mean Harris is starting and ending her quest for the presidency in the worst-case scenario.  Click here to read more about what Monday’s downturn means for Harris. Wild, wild, West of maps In case the rules governing how district maps can be drawn weren’t confusing enough, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown a new wrench in the gears. Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana have all been subjects of questions about how Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has been applied to their district maps in recent years.  Now add Texas to that list.  Supreme Court Reporter Kaelan Deese took a deep dive into the Aug. 1 decision that “curtails what conservative critics argue is the Democrats’ misuse of the Voting Rights Act to create voting districts favoring their party in Galveston, Texas. This ruling has the potential to reshape the political landscape not just in the Lone Star State but also in Louisiana and Mississippi, states within the jurisdiction of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — potentially shifting numerous seats from Democrat to Republican.”  Section 2 of the VRA is relatively straightforward — ”Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in one of the language minority groups identified in Section 4(f)(2) of the Act.” Where it gets complicated is in situations like the one in Galveston, where a minority-majority district was created using a coalition of minority groups.  “Galveston County, with a population that is 58% white, 22.5% Hispanic, and 12.5% black, had previously drawn a coalition district combining black and Hispanic populations,” Kaelan wrote. “This district was represented by a black Democrat until the 2021 redistricting, which eliminated the coalition district, and prompted lawsuits from the NAACP and the Justice Department, arguing that coalition districts are mandated by the VRA.”  The 5th Circuit’s ruling doesn’t gut the ability for states to create minority-majority districts, which tend to favor Democrats, but it does put restrictions on the way the populations are determined and how the lines are drawn.  “The implications of this ruling are significant,” Kaelan wrote. “It effectively stops the use of the VRA to create coalition districts aimed at bolstering Democratic representation in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and the potential for the Biden administration to appeal now to the Supreme Court has been elevated.”  Click here to read more about what redistricting could look like in the future. New from us The exodus from Kamala Harris’s California continues Has Harris peaked or is her best yet to come? Billionaire falsely labeled Jewish by dark money group in ‘antisemitism’ dig In case you missed it Kamala Harris is going down in history again The Secret Service denied reports it considered destroying cocaine found in the White House Google cannot pass go, it cannot collect $200 For your radar Biden doesn’t have any public events on his schedule. Harris is set to announce her running mate any time Tuesday ahead of a rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at 5:30 p.m. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will brief reporters at 1:30 p.m. , , , https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/donald-trump-fight-georgia.webp, Washington Examiner, Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-favicon-32×32.png, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feed/, Max Thornberry,

Never gonna give him up

Former President Donald Trump could be claiming victory. The debate between him and his former rival, President Joe Biden, was such a resounding win for the former president that Democrats booted their leader in favor of his No. 2. There hasn’t been a debate as consequential as the one on June 27 since we started seeing them on television. 

With Biden out and Vice President Kamala Harris tapping in, Trump has shifted his focus to trash the “dangerously liberal” Democratic replacement. He has plenty of fodder to stuff his speeches with, including Harris’s profession of changing nearly all of her positions she said she held when she was challenging Biden for the Democratic nomination four years ago. 

But there are some things Trump just can’t seem to quit. And attacking Biden appears to be muscle memory at this point, Congress and Campaigns Editor David Sivak wrote for us this morning. 

“Trump has joined Republicans in painting Harris as a ‘San Francisco radical’ who failed as Biden’s ‘border czar.’ His campaign’s first ad against Harris used the immigration crisis witnessed under Biden to call her ‘dangerously liberal,’” David wrote.

“He has simultaneously continued to incorporate material about Biden into his speeches. ‘He was choking like a dog,’ Trump said of their debate at a rally in Atlanta on Saturday, describing Biden’s exit from the race two weeks ago as an undemocratic takeover,” he wrote.

Reaching back and grabbing old material has happened so often since the race has changed, and the Harris campaign has flipped the script, poking at Trump’s age and asking if he can remember who he is running against. 

Republicans have spent years preparing to run against Biden in 2024 and saying he isn’t fit to run. Impeachment attempts have fizzled in the House as investigators found plenty of dirt on the president’s son while failing to tie Hunter Biden’s shady business practices and drug use to his father in any concrete way. And shifting focus to a new, relatively unknown commodity in Harris with fewer than 100 days until Election Day is a challenge. 

The Washington Examiner looked at the myriad ways Republicans and Democrats are trying to define Harris last week. 

Trump’s latest attack has fallen flat with elected officials. The former president tried to continue the thread of pointing to Harris’s inconsistency on policy to her alleged playing up different aspects of her biracial identity. He accused Harris of “becoming a black person” later in her career when it was advantageous for her after emphasizing her Indian heritage earlier. 

Harris is of Jamaican and Indian descent and, as David wrote, “has identified as black in both her formative years and throughout her career. She attended a black sorority at Howard University and was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus during her time in the Senate.”

The racial attack was spurned by most congressional Republicans, who said they preferred to attack Harris on her record. They weren’t picky about whether they preferred to slam the candidate on the policies she said she supported at one time and has decided are no longer important, or the programs she has been the face of as a member of the Biden-Harris administration. 

It’s those programs, primarily her role as Biden’s “border czar” and the face of his administration’s propping up of abortion rights, that are giving Trump ample opportunity to keep up his stream of attacks on Biden even while he fades into the background. 

Running against Harris isn’t the fight Trump picked when he waited and watched the GOP primary field fall apart with him barely lifting a finger. The plan was always to position himself as the alternative to an aged, low-energy Biden who was sapping the excitement from voters. Instead, he is locked in a fight with a significantly younger Harris, who has injected new life into the electorate, raising hundreds of millions of dollars and signing up hundreds of thousands of new volunteers. 

Trump wasn’t able to pick his opponent, but he’s capable of picking his battles. Each of those is likely to include Biden — and the ways Harris can’t escape being tied to her boss. 

Click here to read more about Trump’s campaign tactics. 

Michigan madness

Primary season is drawing to a close. There are a handful of contests that need to wrap up before voters know who their candidates are going to be in November. 

One of the most important contests is happening on Tuesday night in Michigan, where Democrats are all but assured to send Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) to face off against former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in one of a handful of pivotal Senate contests that will determine control of the chamber next year. 

Rogers and Slotkin still need to win their respective primaries, though the results appear to be a foregone conclusion, as Senate Reporter Ramsey Touchberry wrote this morning. 

“The Democratic front-runner, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), faces off against actor and small business owner Hill Harper,” Ramsey wrote. 

“The Republican front-runner, former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, is up against physician Sherry O’Donnell and Republican-turned-libertarian former Rep. Justin Amash.” 

Rogers or another Republican faces an uphill fight, though one significantly easier with Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) not on the ticket. Michigan hasn’t sent a Republican to the Senate in two decades, and Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told Ramsey it wasn’t going to this year. 

“There’s no way we’re losing Michigan on my watch,” Peters said. 

Peters has some reason to be confident. Harris overtaking Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket has breathed new life into down-ballot feelings as voters are getting inspired to turn up on Election Day.

Biden frustrated the Arab- and Muslim-American communities in Dearborn, Michigan, with his vocal support for Israel in its war with Hamas. Their frustration meant a sizable “uncommitted” movement would send delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago later this month. A delegation that likely prefers Harris’s approach to Israel than Biden’s — and one that is not going to be a short-term factor as Harris locked up the roll call nomination last week. 

While Republicans were worried about having to face Stabenow, they are feeling bullish about their chances of defeating Slotkin. 

“You can probably get almost every Republican who is either in the field or ran in the field to admit that they wouldn’t have run against Debbie [Stabenow],” a source close to the Rogers campaign told Ramsey. “I think going against Slotkin, who we haven’t really seen run statewide, we don’t really know her vulnerabilities.”

Republicans have slowly been improving their standing in Michigan, running a candidate who lost to Peters by fewer than 2 points in 2020. 

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted the Senate race there from “lean Democrat” to “toss-up,” though that was when Biden was spooking Slotkin from appearing with him on the trail, and the rating hasn’t been revisited since the president dropped out of the contest. 

Click here to read more about what you need to know before Michigan’s primary tomorrow night.

Supreme Court story as old as time

Republicans are furious with Biden’s latest attempt to interfere with the Supreme Court. His move in the twilight hours of his presidency to push through term limits and an enforceable code of conduct on the justices smacks of executive overreach and partisan point-scoring — an attempt to run up the score with a Democratic base that has jolted to life with Harris taking over standard-bearer duties. 

Efforts to overhaul the court have primarily been from the Left, though Republicans were involved in some of the earliest moves to influence the court, Breaking News Reporter Jack Birle reminded us this morning in a short history lesson. 

“While the Supreme Court has largely stayed the same structurally until 1869, there have been several attempts to change the status quo in the more than 150 years since,” Jack wrote, about three failed attempts to overhaul the makeup and authority of the court.  

The most famous foiled plan was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s attempt to “pack” the court in 1937 after it struck down several New Deal programs. 

“Roosevelt claimed his proposal to add up to six more justices, or one for each justice that was over 70 years old, was to lighten the workload for the justices, but it was widely viewed as an attempt to tip the court in his favor,” Jack wrote. 

The Democratic field in 2020 nearly all ran on some promise to consider a plan to pump up the number of justices on the court after Trump appointed three justices, reshaping the ideological tilt for what will likely be a generation. 

Democratic attempts at meddling are well documented, but Republicans have gotten in on the action, too. 

Idaho Sen. William Borah tried to dilute the authority of the court in 1923 when he proposed a piece of legislation that would have required a 7-2 majority to kill a law passed by Congress. The bill went nowhere, and 5-4 decisions have riled up Democrats and Republicans for decades. 

Click here to read more about the failed attempts to overhaul the Supreme Court over the years.

New from us

Where does Kamala Harris stand on permitting?

House Republicans slam military health agency for blocking parents’ access to children’s health records

Jon Tester’s delicate dance with the top of the Democratic ticket

Democratic dark money fuels ‘nonpartisan’ climate group behind swing state ads

Milwaukee’s mayor is making sure Wisconsin voters know how much their vote counts: ‘The swingiest of states’

In case you missed it

RFK Jr. thinks he’s a bit of a prankster 

Democrats have serious problems with the odds-on favorite to be Harris’s VP

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and … Joe Biden?

For your radar

Biden has no public events scheduled on Monday. He will speak with the king of Jordan at 11 a.m. before leaving Delaware to return to Washington, D.C. He will arrive at the White House at 2 p.m. before meeting with the National Security Council at 2:15. 

Harris is set to announce her running mate any time before she makes an appearance in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday. She will join Biden in meeting with the National Security Council. She has no public events scheduled today.

2024-08-05 12:19:00, http://s.wordpress.com/mshots/v1/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonexaminer.com%2Fnews%2F3110455%2Fwake-up-washington-examiner-trump-quit-michigan-madness-supreme-court-history%2F?w=600&h=450, Never gonna give him up Former President Donald Trump could be claiming victory. The debate between him and his former rival, President Joe Biden , was such a resounding win for the former president that Democrats booted their leader in favor of his No. 2. There hasn’t been a debate as consequential as the one,

Never gonna give him up

Former President Donald Trump could be claiming victory. The debate between him and his former rival, President Joe Biden, was such a resounding win for the former president that Democrats booted their leader in favor of his No. 2. There hasn’t been a debate as consequential as the one on June 27 since we started seeing them on television. 

With Biden out and Vice President Kamala Harris tapping in, Trump has shifted his focus to trash the “dangerously liberal” Democratic replacement. He has plenty of fodder to stuff his speeches with, including Harris’s profession of changing nearly all of her positions she said she held when she was challenging Biden for the Democratic nomination four years ago. 

But there are some things Trump just can’t seem to quit. And attacking Biden appears to be muscle memory at this point, Congress and Campaigns Editor David Sivak wrote for us this morning. 

“Trump has joined Republicans in painting Harris as a ‘San Francisco radical’ who failed as Biden’s ‘border czar.’ His campaign’s first ad against Harris used the immigration crisis witnessed under Biden to call her ‘dangerously liberal,’” David wrote.

“He has simultaneously continued to incorporate material about Biden into his speeches. ‘He was choking like a dog,’ Trump said of their debate at a rally in Atlanta on Saturday, describing Biden’s exit from the race two weeks ago as an undemocratic takeover,” he wrote.

Reaching back and grabbing old material has happened so often since the race has changed, and the Harris campaign has flipped the script, poking at Trump’s age and asking if he can remember who he is running against. 

Republicans have spent years preparing to run against Biden in 2024 and saying he isn’t fit to run. Impeachment attempts have fizzled in the House as investigators found plenty of dirt on the president’s son while failing to tie Hunter Biden’s shady business practices and drug use to his father in any concrete way. And shifting focus to a new, relatively unknown commodity in Harris with fewer than 100 days until Election Day is a challenge. 

The Washington Examiner looked at the myriad ways Republicans and Democrats are trying to define Harris last week. 

Trump’s latest attack has fallen flat with elected officials. The former president tried to continue the thread of pointing to Harris’s inconsistency on policy to her alleged playing up different aspects of her biracial identity. He accused Harris of “becoming a black person” later in her career when it was advantageous for her after emphasizing her Indian heritage earlier. 

Harris is of Jamaican and Indian descent and, as David wrote, “has identified as black in both her formative years and throughout her career. She attended a black sorority at Howard University and was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus during her time in the Senate.”

The racial attack was spurned by most congressional Republicans, who said they preferred to attack Harris on her record. They weren’t picky about whether they preferred to slam the candidate on the policies she said she supported at one time and has decided are no longer important, or the programs she has been the face of as a member of the Biden-Harris administration. 

It’s those programs, primarily her role as Biden’s “border czar” and the face of his administration’s propping up of abortion rights, that are giving Trump ample opportunity to keep up his stream of attacks on Biden even while he fades into the background. 

Running against Harris isn’t the fight Trump picked when he waited and watched the GOP primary field fall apart with him barely lifting a finger. The plan was always to position himself as the alternative to an aged, low-energy Biden who was sapping the excitement from voters. Instead, he is locked in a fight with a significantly younger Harris, who has injected new life into the electorate, raising hundreds of millions of dollars and signing up hundreds of thousands of new volunteers. 

Trump wasn’t able to pick his opponent, but he’s capable of picking his battles. Each of those is likely to include Biden — and the ways Harris can’t escape being tied to her boss. 

Click here to read more about Trump’s campaign tactics. 

Michigan madness

Primary season is drawing to a close. There are a handful of contests that need to wrap up before voters know who their candidates are going to be in November. 

One of the most important contests is happening on Tuesday night in Michigan, where Democrats are all but assured to send Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) to face off against former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in one of a handful of pivotal Senate contests that will determine control of the chamber next year. 

Rogers and Slotkin still need to win their respective primaries, though the results appear to be a foregone conclusion, as Senate Reporter Ramsey Touchberry wrote this morning. 

“The Democratic front-runner, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), faces off against actor and small business owner Hill Harper,” Ramsey wrote. 

“The Republican front-runner, former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, is up against physician Sherry O’Donnell and Republican-turned-libertarian former Rep. Justin Amash.” 

Rogers or another Republican faces an uphill fight, though one significantly easier with Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) not on the ticket. Michigan hasn’t sent a Republican to the Senate in two decades, and Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told Ramsey it wasn’t going to this year. 

“There’s no way we’re losing Michigan on my watch,” Peters said. 

Peters has some reason to be confident. Harris overtaking Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket has breathed new life into down-ballot feelings as voters are getting inspired to turn up on Election Day.

Biden frustrated the Arab- and Muslim-American communities in Dearborn, Michigan, with his vocal support for Israel in its war with Hamas. Their frustration meant a sizable “uncommitted” movement would send delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago later this month. A delegation that likely prefers Harris’s approach to Israel than Biden’s — and one that is not going to be a short-term factor as Harris locked up the roll call nomination last week. 

While Republicans were worried about having to face Stabenow, they are feeling bullish about their chances of defeating Slotkin. 

“You can probably get almost every Republican who is either in the field or ran in the field to admit that they wouldn’t have run against Debbie [Stabenow],” a source close to the Rogers campaign told Ramsey. “I think going against Slotkin, who we haven’t really seen run statewide, we don’t really know her vulnerabilities.”

Republicans have slowly been improving their standing in Michigan, running a candidate who lost to Peters by fewer than 2 points in 2020. 

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted the Senate race there from “lean Democrat” to “toss-up,” though that was when Biden was spooking Slotkin from appearing with him on the trail, and the rating hasn’t been revisited since the president dropped out of the contest. 

Click here to read more about what you need to know before Michigan’s primary tomorrow night.

Supreme Court story as old as time

Republicans are furious with Biden’s latest attempt to interfere with the Supreme Court. His move in the twilight hours of his presidency to push through term limits and an enforceable code of conduct on the justices smacks of executive overreach and partisan point-scoring — an attempt to run up the score with a Democratic base that has jolted to life with Harris taking over standard-bearer duties. 

Efforts to overhaul the court have primarily been from the Left, though Republicans were involved in some of the earliest moves to influence the court, Breaking News Reporter Jack Birle reminded us this morning in a short history lesson. 

“While the Supreme Court has largely stayed the same structurally until 1869, there have been several attempts to change the status quo in the more than 150 years since,” Jack wrote, about three failed attempts to overhaul the makeup and authority of the court.  

The most famous foiled plan was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s attempt to “pack” the court in 1937 after it struck down several New Deal programs. 

“Roosevelt claimed his proposal to add up to six more justices, or one for each justice that was over 70 years old, was to lighten the workload for the justices, but it was widely viewed as an attempt to tip the court in his favor,” Jack wrote. 

The Democratic field in 2020 nearly all ran on some promise to consider a plan to pump up the number of justices on the court after Trump appointed three justices, reshaping the ideological tilt for what will likely be a generation. 

Democratic attempts at meddling are well documented, but Republicans have gotten in on the action, too. 

Idaho Sen. William Borah tried to dilute the authority of the court in 1923 when he proposed a piece of legislation that would have required a 7-2 majority to kill a law passed by Congress. The bill went nowhere, and 5-4 decisions have riled up Democrats and Republicans for decades. 

Click here to read more about the failed attempts to overhaul the Supreme Court over the years.

New from us

Where does Kamala Harris stand on permitting?

House Republicans slam military health agency for blocking parents’ access to children’s health records

Jon Tester’s delicate dance with the top of the Democratic ticket

Democratic dark money fuels ‘nonpartisan’ climate group behind swing state ads

Milwaukee’s mayor is making sure Wisconsin voters know how much their vote counts: ‘The swingiest of states’

In case you missed it

RFK Jr. thinks he’s a bit of a prankster 

Democrats have serious problems with the odds-on favorite to be Harris’s VP

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and … Joe Biden?

For your radar

Biden has no public events scheduled on Monday. He will speak with the king of Jordan at 11 a.m. before leaving Delaware to return to Washington, D.C. He will arrive at the White House at 2 p.m. before meeting with the National Security Council at 2:15. 

Harris is set to announce her running mate any time before she makes an appearance in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday. She will join Biden in meeting with the National Security Council. She has no public events scheduled today.

, Never gonna give him up Former President Donald Trump could be claiming victory. The debate between him and his former rival, President Joe Biden , was such a resounding win for the former president that Democrats booted their leader in favor of his No. 2. There hasn’t been a debate as consequential as the one on June 27 since we started seeing them on television.  With Biden out and Vice President Kamala Harris tapping in, Trump has shifted his focus to trash the “dangerously liberal” Democratic replacement. He has plenty of fodder to stuff his speeches with, including Harris’s profession of changing nearly all of her positions she said she held when she was challenging Biden for the Democratic nomination four years ago.  But there are some things Trump just can’t seem to quit. And attacking Biden appears to be muscle memory at this point, Congress and Campaigns Editor David Sivak wrote for us this morning.  “Trump has joined Republicans in painting Harris as a ‘San Francisco radical’ who failed as Biden’s ‘border czar.’ His campaign’s first ad against Harris used the immigration crisis witnessed under Biden to call her ‘dangerously liberal,’” David wrote. “He has simultaneously continued to incorporate material about Biden into his speeches. ‘He was choking like a dog,’ Trump said of their debate at a rally in Atlanta on Saturday, describing Biden’s exit from the race two weeks ago as an undemocratic takeover,” he wrote. Reaching back and grabbing old material has happened so often since the race has changed, and the Harris campaign has flipped the script, poking at Trump’s age and asking if he can remember who he is running against.  Republicans have spent years preparing to run against Biden in 2024 and saying he isn’t fit to run. Impeachment attempts have fizzled in the House as investigators found plenty of dirt on the president’s son while failing to tie Hunter Biden’s shady business practices and drug use to his father in any concrete way. And shifting focus to a new, relatively unknown commodity in Harris with fewer than 100 days until Election Day is a challenge.  The Washington Examiner looked at the myriad ways Republicans and Democrats are trying to define Harris last week.  Trump’s latest attack has fallen flat with elected officials. The former president tried to continue the thread of pointing to Harris’s inconsistency on policy to her alleged playing up different aspects of her biracial identity. He accused Harris of “becoming a black person” later in her career when it was advantageous for her after emphasizing her Indian heritage earlier.  Harris is of Jamaican and Indian descent and, as David wrote, “has identified as black in both her formative years and throughout her career. She attended a black sorority at Howard University and was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus during her time in the Senate.” The racial attack was spurned by most congressional Republicans, who said they preferred to attack Harris on her record. They weren’t picky about whether they preferred to slam the candidate on the policies she said she supported at one time and has decided are no longer important, or the programs she has been the face of as a member of the Biden-Harris administration.  It’s those programs, primarily her role as Biden’s “border czar” and the face of his administration’s propping up of abortion rights, that are giving Trump ample opportunity to keep up his stream of attacks on Biden even while he fades into the background.  Running against Harris isn’t the fight Trump picked when he waited and watched the GOP primary field fall apart with him barely lifting a finger. The plan was always to position himself as the alternative to an aged, low-energy Biden who was sapping the excitement from voters. Instead, he is locked in a fight with a significantly younger Harris, who has injected new life into the electorate, raising hundreds of millions of dollars and signing up hundreds of thousands of new volunteers.  Trump wasn’t able to pick his opponent, but he’s capable of picking his battles. Each of those is likely to include Biden — and the ways Harris can’t escape being tied to her boss.  Click here to read more about Trump’s campaign tactics.  Michigan madness Primary season is drawing to a close. There are a handful of contests that need to wrap up before voters know who their candidates are going to be in November.  One of the most important contests is happening on Tuesday night in Michigan, where Democrats are all but assured to send Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) to face off against former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in one of a handful of pivotal Senate contests that will determine control of the chamber next year.  Rogers and Slotkin still need to win their respective primaries, though the results appear to be a foregone conclusion, as Senate Reporter Ramsey Touchberry wrote this morning.  “The Democratic front-runner, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), faces off against actor and small business owner Hill Harper,” Ramsey wrote.  “The Republican front-runner, former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, is up against physician Sherry O’Donnell and Republican-turned-libertarian former Rep. Justin Amash.”  Rogers or another Republican faces an uphill fight, though one significantly easier with Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) not on the ticket. Michigan hasn’t sent a Republican to the Senate in two decades, and Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told Ramsey it wasn’t going to this year.  “There’s no way we’re losing Michigan on my watch,” Peters said.  Peters has some reason to be confident. Harris overtaking Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket has breathed new life into down-ballot feelings as voters are getting inspired to turn up on Election Day. Biden frustrated the Arab- and Muslim-American communities in Dearborn, Michigan, with his vocal support for Israel in its war with Hamas. Their frustration meant a sizable “uncommitted” movement would send delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago later this month. A delegation that likely prefers Harris’s approach to Israel than Biden’s — and one that is not going to be a short-term factor as Harris locked up the roll call nomination last week.  While Republicans were worried about having to face Stabenow, they are feeling bullish about their chances of defeating Slotkin.  “You can probably get almost every Republican who is either in the field or ran in the field to admit that they wouldn’t have run against Debbie [Stabenow],” a source close to the Rogers campaign told Ramsey. “I think going against Slotkin, who we haven’t really seen run statewide, we don’t really know her vulnerabilities.” Republicans have slowly been improving their standing in Michigan, running a candidate who lost to Peters by fewer than 2 points in 2020.  The nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted the Senate race there from “lean Democrat” to “toss-up,” though that was when Biden was spooking Slotkin from appearing with him on the trail, and the rating hasn’t been revisited since the president dropped out of the contest.  Click here to read more about what you need to know before Michigan’s primary tomorrow night. Supreme Court story as old as time Republicans are furious with Biden’s latest attempt to interfere with the Supreme Court. His move in the twilight hours of his presidency to push through term limits and an enforceable code of conduct on the justices smacks of executive overreach and partisan point-scoring — an attempt to run up the score with a Democratic base that has jolted to life with Harris taking over standard-bearer duties.  Efforts to overhaul the court have primarily been from the Left, though Republicans were involved in some of the earliest moves to influence the court, Breaking News Reporter Jack Birle reminded us this morning in a short history lesson.  “While the Supreme Court has largely stayed the same structurally until 1869, there have been several attempts to change the status quo in the more than 150 years since,” Jack wrote, about three failed attempts to overhaul the makeup and authority of the court.   The most famous foiled plan was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s attempt to “pack” the court in 1937 after it struck down several New Deal programs.  “Roosevelt claimed his proposal to add up to six more justices, or one for each justice that was over 70 years old, was to lighten the workload for the justices, but it was widely viewed as an attempt to tip the court in his favor,” Jack wrote.  The Democratic field in 2020 nearly all ran on some promise to consider a plan to pump up the number of justices on the court after Trump appointed three justices, reshaping the ideological tilt for what will likely be a generation.  Democratic attempts at meddling are well documented, but Republicans have gotten in on the action, too.  Idaho Sen. William Borah tried to dilute the authority of the court in 1923 when he proposed a piece of legislation that would have required a 7-2 majority to kill a law passed by Congress. The bill went nowhere, and 5-4 decisions have riled up Democrats and Republicans for decades.  Click here to read more about the failed attempts to overhaul the Supreme Court over the years. New from us Where does Kamala Harris stand on permitting? House Republicans slam military health agency for blocking parents’ access to children’s health records Jon Tester’s delicate dance with the top of the Democratic ticket Democratic dark money fuels ‘nonpartisan’ climate group behind swing state ads Milwaukee’s mayor is making sure Wisconsin voters know how much their vote counts: ‘The swingiest of states’ In case you missed it RFK Jr. thinks he’s a bit of a prankster  Democrats have serious problems with the odds-on favorite to be Harris’s VP George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and … Joe Biden? For your radar Biden has no public events scheduled on Monday. He will speak with the king of Jordan at 11 a.m. before leaving Delaware to return to Washington, D.C. He will arrive at the White House at 2 p.m. before meeting with the National Security Council at 2:15.  Harris is set to announce her running mate any time before she makes an appearance in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday. She will join Biden in meeting with the National Security Council. She has no public events scheduled today., , , https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/trump-strategy-attack-biden.webp, Washington Examiner, Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-favicon-32×32.png, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feed/, Max Thornberry,

Kamala Harris — the face of abortion

Time is ticking away for Vice President and presumed presidential nominee Kamala Harris to define herself. Taking over for her boss, President Joe Biden, who had 36 years as a senator and eight years as the vice president to the most-liked Democrat in a generation, could pose a problem for the district attorney-turned-attorney general-turned-senator. 

Problems haven’t arisen yet, though. Her rollout has featured a fundraising blitz that scooped up more than $200 million in a little over a week. Democrats have added tens of thousands of volunteers. And voters are turning up to Harris’s rallies, showing a sense of excitement and urgency that was lacking with Biden. 

It’s not clear how much of that excitement can be attributed to Harris painting herself as a staunch abortion-rights proponent. She has been the face of pushing for expanded abortion access and the primary attack dog to snap at the Supreme Court in the wake of its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and send the authority to regulate abortions back to the states. 

Whether it’s the animating feature of her campaign or simply her preferred narrative, Harris is using abortion as the centerpiece of her quest to the White House. And Republicans appear to be happy letting her stump on that message, banking on the idea that abortion is not the game changer it was for Democrats in 2022 and that the party’s position is too extreme for centrist voters to stomach. 

In the second part of the Washington Examiner’s series exploring the myriad ways Harris is fighting to define herself with fewer than 100 days until Election Day, Healthcare Reporter Gabrielle Etzel broke down the vice president’s past, present, and future record on abortion. 

“Just as former President Donald Trump rose to political prominence with a focus on immigration, so too Harris is building her campaign on restoring national abortion protections in the aftermath of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. It’s a change from her brief 2019 campaign for the White House, in which she attempted to court both the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic Party and failed to persuade either one,” Gabrielle wrote. 

“As Harris seeks to benefit from the abortion debate, the Republican Party writ large is seemingly distancing itself from what Trump has classified as a losing issue. Social conservatives are growing increasingly discontented with the Republican Party’s changes to the platform, which include dropping any reference to national-level restrictions on the procedure and eliminating language about the sanctity of life,” she wrote. 

There were few abortion battles to fight in navy blue California while Harris was the district attorney of San Francisco and later the state attorney general. However, she did make headlines in 2015, leading an early fight against crisis pregnancy centers that has played out on a grander scale nationwide in recent years. 

“In 2015, Harris advocated legislation targeting crisis pregnancy centers, or CPCs, as purveyors of misinformation — a position that has gained favor among Democrats across the country in recent years,” Gabrielle wrote. 

“The law required CPCs to disclose to women that they were not licensed medical facilities and mandated that other clinics could provide abortions. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the legislation in 2018,” she added. 

Harris has kept a hard line on abortion since then, with a highly publicized investigation into an anti-abortion activist in 2016, advocating codifying Roe if she was elected president on the stump in 2019, and the last two years excoriating the Supreme Court and pumping up Democratic attempts to lock in abortion rights across the country.

While Republicans will chime in and push back on Harris occasionally, there is little daylight between the parties about whether they should let her cloak herself in an abortion-rights banner. Not least because, as Gabrielle wrote this morning, the policy issue has fallen down the list of things voters say they are concerned about this cycle. 

“Although Harris’s campaign will do her best to make abortion the primary issue until November, polling data from this year suggest that the issue pales in comparison to both the economy and immigration, two issues that advantage Republicans,” she wrote. 

“Only 1 in 8 voters ranked abortion as their most important issue in a March KFF poll. Another 52% surveyed said the issue was a ‘very important issue but not most important,’” she wrote.

Click here to read more about how Harris is trying to define herself with the clock on election running down.

Campaign trail grenade

Real-life explosions are almost never good. Political explosions can be mixed. Biden’s plan to “reform” the Supreme Court squarely fits into the mixed explosion category as Democrats can crow they are marching toward the changes they’ve been demanding and vulnerable incumbents grit their teeth for the electoral storm headed their way. 

Senate Reporter Ramsey Touchberry and White House Reporter Haisten Willis are both up with fascinating reports this morning that put the delicate situation Biden has placed his party in into perspective. 

The good

Faith and trust in the Supreme Court are waning. Democrats argue it is due to partisan decisions that reflect an unhealthy thirst for power by the Republican-appointed justices who dominate the 6-3 court. Republicans point to repeated attempts by Democrats and their allies in the media to discredit the court and its decisions as a primary driver of the growing doubts voters tell pollsters they have. 

Regardless of the root cause of the problem, Biden’s proposals, which have next to no chance of passing, give campaigning Democrats some juice for the trail. And, of course, a lot of that verve comes in the form of abortion politics.

“The Supreme Court initiative is all about abortion,” Democratic strategist Brad Bannon told Haisten. “The best way for Democrats to use this is to remind voters that Trump picked three Supreme Court justices who made it possible to deny women reproductive rights.”

The plans have something in them for any Democrat who wants to see changes. There are the procedural questions, term limits, and the messaging component it offers. Harris, as Gabrielle wrote, is making abortion the centerpiece of her campaign, and Biden offered another tool for her belt on Monday morning. 

And Democrats picked up on the opportunity straight away. 

“The rule of law is what separates democracy from other forms of government,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) said. “The proposals endorsed by the president today will strengthen the rule of law, and Americans’ faith in our democracy. I look forward to working with the president and my colleagues in Congress to pass this vitally important package into law.”

The bad

The Supreme Court reform grenade is already causing blowback, though. 

Two of the Senate’s most vulnerable and valuable Democratic occupants are saying they cannot sign on to Biden’s plan to slap term limits on justices. 

“The term limits measure is the one that is proving most controversial, and Democrats in tough reelection bids avoided endorsing it Monday,” Ramsey wrote. “Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) told the Washington Examiner on Monday evening she’s ‘still evaluating’ the term limits element, and Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) said he’d yet to look at that portion.” 

As a quick refresher, Biden’s three-legged reform includes an enforceable ethics code for justices, 18-year term limits, and a constitutional amendment reversing the court’s decision on presidential immunity that shields presidents from prosecution for official acts made while in office. 

Both senators told reporters they are on board with the ethics code plan, but supporting one or two parts of a three-legged stool is a good way to hurt yourself. 

It’s not clear why Baldwin and Tester were skeptical about the term limits plan.

Instituting term limits for justices, as well as members of Congress, is a popular idea among voters, but like the rest of Biden’s reform plans, the move would require a constitutional amendment — and a vote to limit justices’ time in office while ignoring restraints on themselves might not be the kind of press Baldwin, Tester, or any other member of the House and Senate are looking for. 

Click here to read more about Democrats’ hopes and fears surrounding Biden’s curtain call plan.

Desert primary

It’s been a while since we’ve had a primary contest to run through, but Arizona voters have candidates to pick through tonight before they return in November. 

The highest-profile races in the Grand Canyon State are on course to be the least interesting this evening. All eyes are on Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and former TV news anchor and failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake to clinch their party nominations to face off against each other for the Senate seat being left open by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) retiring. 

Gallego and Lake are expected to coast through their primary contests tonight before entering one of the fiercest fights in the country in November.

Senate Reporter Samantha-Jo Roth has a comprehensive look this morning at Gallego, Lake, and everything else you need to know about what’s happening in Arizona. 

Below the headline contests that don’t offer much excitement, there is some drama brewing in Arizona as Trump and his vice presidential running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), found themselves at loggerheads before joining forces. 

The top Republicans were at odds over who they wanted to see win the comfortably red 8th Congressional District seat. Trump had already backed Abe Hamadeh before picking Vance, who threw his weight behind former Senate candidate Blake Masters. 

“Trump endorsed two candidates in the Republican primary over the weekend, in an effort to resolve the problem that he and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), made competing endorsements,” Samantha-Jo wrote. “Hamadeh had previously been the only candidate to get a Trump endorsement in the race, while Masters had scored an endorsement from Vance.” 

“While Trump called both candidates ‘spectacular,’ he noted that Masters was a ‘very successful businessman’ and ‘an incredibly strong supporter’ of the MAGA movement. He said Hamadeh was ‘a fearless fighter for election integrity,’” she wrote.

Click here for plenty more tidbits from one of the most important states to watch in 2024.

New from us

Maduro mocks Biden’s naivete

Kamala Harris, unburdened by what has been her record

Harris campaign rolls out first ad after $200 million cash haul

Shapiro could help Harris win Pennsylvania but hurt her elsewhere

A lesson in overmatching Russia over the Black Sea

Congress must reform our outdated permitting process

DNC targets JD Vance’s Nevada visit with abortion-focused billboards

Kamala Harris repeatedly hosted left-wing nonprofit heads shaping policy, records show

In case you missed it

Biden’s big plans ran into immediate trouble

Kamala Harris’s short list got shorter

Mark Meadows wasn’t president, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t using immunity arguments

For your radar

Biden has no public events on his schedule. He will call the president of Brazil at 2:30 p.m. and receive his daily brief at 4:45 p.m.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will hold a briefing at 1:30 p.m.

Harris will travel to Atlanta, Georgia, for a campaign event at 7 p.m.

Vance is in Nevada with a rally in Henderson at 4 p.m. Eastern time and a rally at 7:30 p.m. in Reno.

United States Secret Service acting Director Ronald L. Rowe, Jr. will testify at 10 a.m. before the Senate Homeland Security Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Trump assassination attempt. 

2024-07-30 12:35:00, http://s.wordpress.com/mshots/v1/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonexaminer.com%2Fnews%2Fcampaigns%2F3103884%2Fwake-up-washington-examiner-kamala-dream-issue-biden-election-grenade-desert-showdown%2F?w=600&h=450, Kamala Harris — the face of abortion Time is ticking away for Vice President and presumed presidential nominee Kamala Harris to define herself. Taking over for her boss, President Joe Biden , who had 36 years as a senator and eight years as the vice president to the most-liked Democrat in a generation, could pose,

Kamala Harris — the face of abortion

Time is ticking away for Vice President and presumed presidential nominee Kamala Harris to define herself. Taking over for her boss, President Joe Biden, who had 36 years as a senator and eight years as the vice president to the most-liked Democrat in a generation, could pose a problem for the district attorney-turned-attorney general-turned-senator. 

Problems haven’t arisen yet, though. Her rollout has featured a fundraising blitz that scooped up more than $200 million in a little over a week. Democrats have added tens of thousands of volunteers. And voters are turning up to Harris’s rallies, showing a sense of excitement and urgency that was lacking with Biden. 

It’s not clear how much of that excitement can be attributed to Harris painting herself as a staunch abortion-rights proponent. She has been the face of pushing for expanded abortion access and the primary attack dog to snap at the Supreme Court in the wake of its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and send the authority to regulate abortions back to the states. 

Whether it’s the animating feature of her campaign or simply her preferred narrative, Harris is using abortion as the centerpiece of her quest to the White House. And Republicans appear to be happy letting her stump on that message, banking on the idea that abortion is not the game changer it was for Democrats in 2022 and that the party’s position is too extreme for centrist voters to stomach. 

In the second part of the Washington Examiner’s series exploring the myriad ways Harris is fighting to define herself with fewer than 100 days until Election Day, Healthcare Reporter Gabrielle Etzel broke down the vice president’s past, present, and future record on abortion. 

“Just as former President Donald Trump rose to political prominence with a focus on immigration, so too Harris is building her campaign on restoring national abortion protections in the aftermath of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. It’s a change from her brief 2019 campaign for the White House, in which she attempted to court both the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic Party and failed to persuade either one,” Gabrielle wrote. 

“As Harris seeks to benefit from the abortion debate, the Republican Party writ large is seemingly distancing itself from what Trump has classified as a losing issue. Social conservatives are growing increasingly discontented with the Republican Party’s changes to the platform, which include dropping any reference to national-level restrictions on the procedure and eliminating language about the sanctity of life,” she wrote. 

There were few abortion battles to fight in navy blue California while Harris was the district attorney of San Francisco and later the state attorney general. However, she did make headlines in 2015, leading an early fight against crisis pregnancy centers that has played out on a grander scale nationwide in recent years. 

“In 2015, Harris advocated legislation targeting crisis pregnancy centers, or CPCs, as purveyors of misinformation — a position that has gained favor among Democrats across the country in recent years,” Gabrielle wrote. 

“The law required CPCs to disclose to women that they were not licensed medical facilities and mandated that other clinics could provide abortions. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the legislation in 2018,” she added. 

Harris has kept a hard line on abortion since then, with a highly publicized investigation into an anti-abortion activist in 2016, advocating codifying Roe if she was elected president on the stump in 2019, and the last two years excoriating the Supreme Court and pumping up Democratic attempts to lock in abortion rights across the country.

While Republicans will chime in and push back on Harris occasionally, there is little daylight between the parties about whether they should let her cloak herself in an abortion-rights banner. Not least because, as Gabrielle wrote this morning, the policy issue has fallen down the list of things voters say they are concerned about this cycle. 

“Although Harris’s campaign will do her best to make abortion the primary issue until November, polling data from this year suggest that the issue pales in comparison to both the economy and immigration, two issues that advantage Republicans,” she wrote. 

“Only 1 in 8 voters ranked abortion as their most important issue in a March KFF poll. Another 52% surveyed said the issue was a ‘very important issue but not most important,’” she wrote.

Click here to read more about how Harris is trying to define herself with the clock on election running down.

Campaign trail grenade

Real-life explosions are almost never good. Political explosions can be mixed. Biden’s plan to “reform” the Supreme Court squarely fits into the mixed explosion category as Democrats can crow they are marching toward the changes they’ve been demanding and vulnerable incumbents grit their teeth for the electoral storm headed their way. 

Senate Reporter Ramsey Touchberry and White House Reporter Haisten Willis are both up with fascinating reports this morning that put the delicate situation Biden has placed his party in into perspective. 

The good

Faith and trust in the Supreme Court are waning. Democrats argue it is due to partisan decisions that reflect an unhealthy thirst for power by the Republican-appointed justices who dominate the 6-3 court. Republicans point to repeated attempts by Democrats and their allies in the media to discredit the court and its decisions as a primary driver of the growing doubts voters tell pollsters they have. 

Regardless of the root cause of the problem, Biden’s proposals, which have next to no chance of passing, give campaigning Democrats some juice for the trail. And, of course, a lot of that verve comes in the form of abortion politics.

“The Supreme Court initiative is all about abortion,” Democratic strategist Brad Bannon told Haisten. “The best way for Democrats to use this is to remind voters that Trump picked three Supreme Court justices who made it possible to deny women reproductive rights.”

The plans have something in them for any Democrat who wants to see changes. There are the procedural questions, term limits, and the messaging component it offers. Harris, as Gabrielle wrote, is making abortion the centerpiece of her campaign, and Biden offered another tool for her belt on Monday morning. 

And Democrats picked up on the opportunity straight away. 

“The rule of law is what separates democracy from other forms of government,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) said. “The proposals endorsed by the president today will strengthen the rule of law, and Americans’ faith in our democracy. I look forward to working with the president and my colleagues in Congress to pass this vitally important package into law.”

The bad

The Supreme Court reform grenade is already causing blowback, though. 

Two of the Senate’s most vulnerable and valuable Democratic occupants are saying they cannot sign on to Biden’s plan to slap term limits on justices. 

“The term limits measure is the one that is proving most controversial, and Democrats in tough reelection bids avoided endorsing it Monday,” Ramsey wrote. “Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) told the Washington Examiner on Monday evening she’s ‘still evaluating’ the term limits element, and Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) said he’d yet to look at that portion.” 

As a quick refresher, Biden’s three-legged reform includes an enforceable ethics code for justices, 18-year term limits, and a constitutional amendment reversing the court’s decision on presidential immunity that shields presidents from prosecution for official acts made while in office. 

Both senators told reporters they are on board with the ethics code plan, but supporting one or two parts of a three-legged stool is a good way to hurt yourself. 

It’s not clear why Baldwin and Tester were skeptical about the term limits plan.

Instituting term limits for justices, as well as members of Congress, is a popular idea among voters, but like the rest of Biden’s reform plans, the move would require a constitutional amendment — and a vote to limit justices’ time in office while ignoring restraints on themselves might not be the kind of press Baldwin, Tester, or any other member of the House and Senate are looking for. 

Click here to read more about Democrats’ hopes and fears surrounding Biden’s curtain call plan.

Desert primary

It’s been a while since we’ve had a primary contest to run through, but Arizona voters have candidates to pick through tonight before they return in November. 

The highest-profile races in the Grand Canyon State are on course to be the least interesting this evening. All eyes are on Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and former TV news anchor and failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake to clinch their party nominations to face off against each other for the Senate seat being left open by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) retiring. 

Gallego and Lake are expected to coast through their primary contests tonight before entering one of the fiercest fights in the country in November.

Senate Reporter Samantha-Jo Roth has a comprehensive look this morning at Gallego, Lake, and everything else you need to know about what’s happening in Arizona. 

Below the headline contests that don’t offer much excitement, there is some drama brewing in Arizona as Trump and his vice presidential running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), found themselves at loggerheads before joining forces. 

The top Republicans were at odds over who they wanted to see win the comfortably red 8th Congressional District seat. Trump had already backed Abe Hamadeh before picking Vance, who threw his weight behind former Senate candidate Blake Masters. 

“Trump endorsed two candidates in the Republican primary over the weekend, in an effort to resolve the problem that he and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), made competing endorsements,” Samantha-Jo wrote. “Hamadeh had previously been the only candidate to get a Trump endorsement in the race, while Masters had scored an endorsement from Vance.” 

“While Trump called both candidates ‘spectacular,’ he noted that Masters was a ‘very successful businessman’ and ‘an incredibly strong supporter’ of the MAGA movement. He said Hamadeh was ‘a fearless fighter for election integrity,’” she wrote.

Click here for plenty more tidbits from one of the most important states to watch in 2024.

New from us

Maduro mocks Biden’s naivete

Kamala Harris, unburdened by what has been her record

Harris campaign rolls out first ad after $200 million cash haul

Shapiro could help Harris win Pennsylvania but hurt her elsewhere

A lesson in overmatching Russia over the Black Sea

Congress must reform our outdated permitting process

DNC targets JD Vance’s Nevada visit with abortion-focused billboards

Kamala Harris repeatedly hosted left-wing nonprofit heads shaping policy, records show

In case you missed it

Biden’s big plans ran into immediate trouble

Kamala Harris’s short list got shorter

Mark Meadows wasn’t president, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t using immunity arguments

For your radar

Biden has no public events on his schedule. He will call the president of Brazil at 2:30 p.m. and receive his daily brief at 4:45 p.m.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will hold a briefing at 1:30 p.m.

Harris will travel to Atlanta, Georgia, for a campaign event at 7 p.m.

Vance is in Nevada with a rally in Henderson at 4 p.m. Eastern time and a rally at 7:30 p.m. in Reno.

United States Secret Service acting Director Ronald L. Rowe, Jr. will testify at 10 a.m. before the Senate Homeland Security Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Trump assassination attempt. 

, Kamala Harris — the face of abortion Time is ticking away for Vice President and presumed presidential nominee Kamala Harris to define herself. Taking over for her boss, President Joe Biden , who had 36 years as a senator and eight years as the vice president to the most-liked Democrat in a generation, could pose a problem for the district attorney-turned-attorney general-turned-senator.  Problems haven’t arisen yet, though. Her rollout has featured a fundraising blitz that scooped up more than $200 million in a little over a week. Democrats have added tens of thousands of volunteers. And voters are turning up to Harris’s rallies, showing a sense of excitement and urgency that was lacking with Biden.  It’s not clear how much of that excitement can be attributed to Harris painting herself as a staunch abortion-rights proponent. She has been the face of pushing for expanded abortion access and the primary attack dog to snap at the Supreme Court in the wake of its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and send the authority to regulate abortions back to the states.  Whether it’s the animating feature of her campaign or simply her preferred narrative, Harris is using abortion as the centerpiece of her quest to the White House. And Republicans appear to be happy letting her stump on that message, banking on the idea that abortion is not the game changer it was for Democrats in 2022 and that the party’s position is too extreme for centrist voters to stomach.  In the second part of the Washington Examiner’s series exploring the myriad ways Harris is fighting to define herself with fewer than 100 days until Election Day, Healthcare Reporter Gabrielle Etzel broke down the vice president’s past, present, and future record on abortion.  “Just as former President Donald Trump rose to political prominence with a focus on immigration, so too Harris is building her campaign on restoring national abortion protections in the aftermath of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. It’s a change from her brief 2019 campaign for the White House, in which she attempted to court both the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic Party and failed to persuade either one,” Gabrielle wrote.  “As Harris seeks to benefit from the abortion debate, the Republican Party writ large is seemingly distancing itself from what Trump has classified as a losing issue. Social conservatives are growing increasingly discontented with the Republican Party’s changes to the platform, which include dropping any reference to national-level restrictions on the procedure and eliminating language about the sanctity of life,” she wrote.  There were few abortion battles to fight in navy blue California while Harris was the district attorney of San Francisco and later the state attorney general. However, she did make headlines in 2015, leading an early fight against crisis pregnancy centers that has played out on a grander scale nationwide in recent years.  “In 2015, Harris advocated legislation targeting crisis pregnancy centers, or CPCs, as purveyors of misinformation — a position that has gained favor among Democrats across the country in recent years,” Gabrielle wrote.  “The law required CPCs to disclose to women that they were not licensed medical facilities and mandated that other clinics could provide abortions. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the legislation in 2018,” she added.  Harris has kept a hard line on abortion since then, with a highly publicized investigation into an anti-abortion activist in 2016, advocating codifying Roe if she was elected president on the stump in 2019, and the last two years excoriating the Supreme Court and pumping up Democratic attempts to lock in abortion rights across the country. While Republicans will chime in and push back on Harris occasionally, there is little daylight between the parties about whether they should let her cloak herself in an abortion-rights banner. Not least because, as Gabrielle wrote this morning, the policy issue has fallen down the list of things voters say they are concerned about this cycle.  “Although Harris’s campaign will do her best to make abortion the primary issue until November, polling data from this year suggest that the issue pales in comparison to both the economy and immigration, two issues that advantage Republicans,” she wrote.  “Only 1 in 8 voters ranked abortion as their most important issue in a March KFF poll. Another 52% surveyed said the issue was a ‘very important issue but not most important,’” she wrote. Click here to read more about how Harris is trying to define herself with the clock on election running down. Campaign trail grenade Real-life explosions are almost never good. Political explosions can be mixed. Biden’s plan to “reform” the Supreme Court squarely fits into the mixed explosion category as Democrats can crow they are marching toward the changes they’ve been demanding and vulnerable incumbents grit their teeth for the electoral storm headed their way.  Senate Reporter Ramsey Touchberry and White House Reporter Haisten Willis are both up with fascinating reports this morning that put the delicate situation Biden has placed his party in into perspective.  The good Faith and trust in the Supreme Court are waning. Democrats argue it is due to partisan decisions that reflect an unhealthy thirst for power by the Republican-appointed justices who dominate the 6-3 court. Republicans point to repeated attempts by Democrats and their allies in the media to discredit the court and its decisions as a primary driver of the growing doubts voters tell pollsters they have.  Regardless of the root cause of the problem, Biden’s proposals, which have next to no chance of passing, give campaigning Democrats some juice for the trail. And, of course, a lot of that verve comes in the form of abortion politics. “The Supreme Court initiative is all about abortion,” Democratic strategist Brad Bannon told Haisten. “The best way for Democrats to use this is to remind voters that Trump picked three Supreme Court justices who made it possible to deny women reproductive rights.” The plans have something in them for any Democrat who wants to see changes. There are the procedural questions, term limits, and the messaging component it offers. Harris, as Gabrielle wrote, is making abortion the centerpiece of her campaign, and Biden offered another tool for her belt on Monday morning.  And Democrats picked up on the opportunity straight away.  “The rule of law is what separates democracy from other forms of government,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) said. “The proposals endorsed by the president today will strengthen the rule of law, and Americans’ faith in our democracy. I look forward to working with the president and my colleagues in Congress to pass this vitally important package into law.” The bad The Supreme Court reform grenade is already causing blowback, though.  Two of the Senate’s most vulnerable and valuable Democratic occupants are saying they cannot sign on to Biden’s plan to slap term limits on justices.  “The term limits measure is the one that is proving most controversial, and Democrats in tough reelection bids avoided endorsing it Monday,” Ramsey wrote. “Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) told the Washington Examiner on Monday evening she’s ‘still evaluating’ the term limits element, and Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) said he’d yet to look at that portion.”  As a quick refresher, Biden’s three-legged reform includes an enforceable ethics code for justices, 18-year term limits, and a constitutional amendment reversing the court’s decision on presidential immunity that shields presidents from prosecution for official acts made while in office.  Both senators told reporters they are on board with the ethics code plan, but supporting one or two parts of a three-legged stool is a good way to hurt yourself.  It’s not clear why Baldwin and Tester were skeptical about the term limits plan. Instituting term limits for justices, as well as members of Congress, is a popular idea among voters, but like the rest of Biden’s reform plans, the move would require a constitutional amendment — and a vote to limit justices’ time in office while ignoring restraints on themselves might not be the kind of press Baldwin, Tester, or any other member of the House and Senate are looking for.  Click here to read more about Democrats’ hopes and fears surrounding Biden’s curtain call plan. Desert primary It’s been a while since we’ve had a primary contest to run through, but Arizona voters have candidates to pick through tonight before they return in November.  The highest-profile races in the Grand Canyon State are on course to be the least interesting this evening. All eyes are on Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and former TV news anchor and failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake to clinch their party nominations to face off against each other for the Senate seat being left open by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) retiring.  Gallego and Lake are expected to coast through their primary contests tonight before entering one of the fiercest fights in the country in November. Senate Reporter Samantha-Jo Roth has a comprehensive look this morning at Gallego, Lake, and everything else you need to know about what’s happening in Arizona.  Below the headline contests that don’t offer much excitement, there is some drama brewing in Arizona as Trump and his vice presidential running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), found themselves at loggerheads before joining forces.  The top Republicans were at odds over who they wanted to see win the comfortably red 8th Congressional District seat. Trump had already backed Abe Hamadeh before picking Vance, who threw his weight behind former Senate candidate Blake Masters.  “Trump endorsed two candidates in the Republican primary over the weekend, in an effort to resolve the problem that he and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), made competing endorsements,” Samantha-Jo wrote. “Hamadeh had previously been the only candidate to get a Trump endorsement in the race, while Masters had scored an endorsement from Vance.”  “While Trump called both candidates ‘spectacular,’ he noted that Masters was a ‘very successful businessman’ and ‘an incredibly strong supporter’ of the MAGA movement. He said Hamadeh was ‘a fearless fighter for election integrity,’” she wrote. Click here for plenty more tidbits from one of the most important states to watch in 2024. New from us Maduro mocks Biden’s n aivete Kamala Harris, unburdened by what has been her record Harris campaign rolls out first ad after $200 million cash haul Shapiro could help Harris win Pennsylvania but hurt her elsewhere A lesson in overmatching Russia over the Black Sea Congress must reform our outdated permitting process DNC targets JD Vance’s Nevada visit with abortion-focused billboards Kamala Harris repeatedly hosted left-wing nonprofit heads shaping policy, records show In case you missed it Biden’s big plans ran into immediate trouble Kamala Harris’s short list got shorter Mark Meadows wasn’t president, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t using immunity arguments For your radar Biden has no public events on his schedule. He will call the president of Brazil at 2:30 p.m. and receive his daily brief at 4:45 p.m. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will hold a briefing at 1:30 p.m. Harris will travel to Atlanta, Georgia, for a campaign event at 7 p.m. Vance is in Nevada with a rally in Henderson at 4 p.m. Eastern time and a rally at 7:30 p.m. in Reno. United States Secret Service acting Director Ronald L. Rowe, Jr. will testify at 10 a.m. before the Senate Homeland Security Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Trump assassination attempt. , , , https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/kamala-harris-face-abortion.webp, Washington Examiner, Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-favicon-32×32.png, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feed/, Max Thornberry,

Biden’s Supreme Court plan

President Joe Biden is making good on early promises he would move to “reform” the Supreme Court. He let down his base early on when his Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States didn’t result in calling for massive overhauls to the institution. Democrats have been agitating for ethics codes, term limits, and an expanded bench for years.

It’s not likely any of the president’s demands for change on the high court are going to come to fruition, but in the final days of his time in office, Biden has laid out precisely what he wants to happen with the high court.

Breaking News Reporter Jack Birle took a look at the president’s proposal released in an op-ed for the Washington Post early Monday morning.

The gist of the reforms, Jack wrote, comes down to three major ideas that have been percolating for years and one that has been in the political bloodstream for only a few weeks.

“Biden argued for his points of reforming the high court and reversing a recent decision made by the court in an opinion piece in the Washington Post,” Jack wrote. “The president, who served in the Senate from 1973 to 2009, argued for term limits, a reformed Supreme Court ethics code, and wiping away immunity for the president for any acts.”

While most of the ideas aren’t new — presidents have been subject to term limits for decades — Biden and Democrats are particularly concerned about the court’s recent decision that offers broad immunity for presidents who are carrying out “official acts” while in office. The question came before the court in response to former President Donald Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021.

The Washington Examiner has argued the court struck an appropriate balance of protection and oversight for presidents with the decision.

“With lawfare now a routine means of weakening political opponents, the court’s 6-3 majority in Trump v. United States struck the right balance, extending the immunity presidents already enjoy in the civil context, which all nine justices support, to the criminal context,” we wrote shortly after the decision.

However, the court’s decision has caused delays in all of Trump’s trials and angered Democrats to no end.

“What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms,” Biden wrote on Monday. “We now stand in a breach.”

To counter the court, Biden is suggesting a constitutional amendment titled the “No One Is Above the Law Amendment” that would “make clear that there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office.”

Constitutional amendments are incredibly difficult to execute, and given the requirement of two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states to pass, it’s unlikely Biden’s plan will go anywhere.

Click here to read about Biden’s last attempt to fight the Supreme Court before he retires.

‘Kamala the cop’ loses its luster

Vice President Kamala Harris is in a historic position. She has been vaulted to the top of her party and is days away from cementing her position as the Democratic nominee for president with fewer than 100 days before final votes are cast. For all the excitement her swap with Biden at the top of the ticket has elicited, those short 16 weeks leave her with a massive problem. 

Harris will, of course, be hitting the trail trying to introduce and define herself to voters who only have vague memories of her 2019 campaign. Vice presidents tend to fade into the background of the public consciousness, and besides her occasional blips early on for bungling her border assignment or the odd “word salad” response that would go viral for the very online to mock, Harris is unknown at the national level. 

This week, the Washington Examiner is taking a look at the various ways Harris is going to try to define herself and how Republicans are going to take those arguments from the former prosecutor and spin them back on her.

This morning, Senior Investigations Reporter Barnini Chakraborty took a look at Harris’s record as a prosecutor and her role as the “top cop” in California before running for Senate. Harris’s history as a prosecutor spelled trouble for her in 2019 as the Left’s rage and frustration with police officers and law enforcement hit a high water mark. She tried to run on her tough-on-crime record that angered Democrats and raised Republicans’ eyebrows.

“Harris’s opinions and actions, at times, have put her at odds with both sides of the political spectrum. To those on the Right, she wasn’t tough enough,” Barnini wrote. “To those on the Left, she was too tough and didn’t do her job speaking up for marginalized communities. She’s also been accused of being a social and political climber, fixated on getting power rather than getting the job done.”

With “defund the police” fading into distant memory, Harris is reprising her prosecutorial record as a defining selling point for why she is best suited to defeat former President Donald Trump in November. 

“I took on perpetrators of all kinds, predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own game,” Harris said at a Wisconsin rally and has made a regular item in her stump speech. “So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.”

Democrats’ focus on Trump’s litany of legal struggles leaves Harris in what should be a prime position. The former president won’t be spending his time in courtrooms this fall, as his various trials have been delayed in light of the Supreme Court’s sweeping decision about presidential immunity being adjudicated. But Harris can give her supporters, and Trump’s biggest critics, the trials they have waited for. 

The only problem, as Barnini pointed out this morning, is Harris’s record is shot through with landmines. 

Early on in her time as the San Francisco district attorney, Harris angered everyone when she declined to seek the death penalty for a gang member who shot and killed a police officer. The murder angered then-California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. 

Despite the outrage by members of her own party, Harris refused to relent on her position, insisting the death penalty discriminated against poor, black, and minority defendants. 

Barnini ran through a lengthy list of problems Harris will have to address in the coming weeks. However, given her time in public office, if not in the public eye, some Democrats are saying she has already weathered the worst of the storm. If her problems as a prosecutor haven’t kept her from rising to be the first female vice president in U.S. history, Republicans might need to find another way to define her. 

Click here to read all about Harris’s struggle to reclaim her ‘good cop’ image. 

Cryptic calls from the FBI

The FBI might have the force and authority of the U.S. government behind it, but investigators are still struggling to access key information from the phone recovered from the man who shot Trump two weeks ago. 

During a hearing before Congress last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray said his agency had accessed the shooter’s phone but was locked out of some messages and apps that could reveal the motive for the assassination attempt. 

“In terms of our ability to access it, we have been able to get into and exploit a number of electronic devices, digital devices, but not all of them yet, and then within his various accounts, we’ve been able to get access to some of them, but some of them we’re still waiting on,” Wray said. “Some of them we may never get access to because of the encryption issue that presents an increasingly vexing barrier for law enforcement.” 

Those struggles, Justice Reporter Ashley Oliver wrote this morning, are due to encryption and privacy measures tech companies take to ensure their customers that some data they don’t want shared with anyone can stay private. 

Apps such as Signal, WhatsApp, and Proton Mail offer users end-to-end encryption protection that locks messages from unauthorized users. Only the sender and receiver can see the messages, and the FBI is still catching up to the technology. 

Short of breaking through the privacy firewalls themselves, the FBI and other agencies have tried to go down legal roads that would force companies to provide them with information or create backdoors in the products that would allow alternative ways in. Companies have fought subpoenas and other legal demands while outright refusing to create intentionally weak products that can be accessed by unauthorized users. 

Given the roadblocks, privacy lobbyists and activists are concerned the FBI is preparing to go all the way to the president to seek help. 

“Given the FBI’s long history of working to undermine end-to-end encryption, it’s very likely they will ask the next president to help them do it, and we can already see Director Wray laying that groundwork,” Hajar Hammado, a senior policy adviser at Demand Progress, told Ashley.

Even with the president on board, it’s not clear the FBI is going to have any success in undermining encryption protocols. Members of Congress are aware of the problems encryption can cause investigators in instances, such as investigating an attempted assassination of a former president, but appear skeptical about gutting privacy programs for everyone in other instances.

Click here to read more about the encryption versus FBI showdown playing out. 

GOP — Private eyes

There has been a lot about the investigation into the attempted assassination of Trump that Republican lawmakers have not been satisfied with. While privacy and encryption troubles have slowed things, there is more information, and answers, senators and representatives think need clarifying. 

The peak point of frustration might have been the bipartisan grilling of former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle last week. Nine days after the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, Cheatle appeared before the House Oversight Committee to answer questions about the tragic event that left one man dead and two others injured, plus the former president shot. 

Cheatle was grilled by everyone on the committee. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) asked Cheatle if she’d like to form her resignation letter then and there — something the director declined at the time but handed over a day later. 

After failing to provide the committee with answers to basic questions, GOP lawmakers took it upon themselves to go on a fact-finding mission, Senate Reporter Ramsey Touchberry wrote for us this morning. 

“Armed with accusations that federal investigators aren’t being transparent, lawmakers have obtained and unveiled new footage and details of security pitfalls that may have enabled a rooftop shooter to strike Trump from only a few hundred feet away,” Ramsey wrote. 

Lawmaker investigations have included public records requests and in-the-field walkthroughs of the shooting site. 

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) railed against the FBI, which is leading the investigation, after he used his congressional authority to obtain video footage of the shooting and released it to reporters. 

“Federal agencies ought to be embarrassed that Chuck Grassley has beaten them to the investigative punch,” Grassley told Ramsey. “My oversight won’t be letting up anytime soon.”

Another group wasn’t content to send off letters from Washington. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) took a group of lawmakers to the shooting site in Pennsylvania last week, and they walked through the grounds and climbed on top of the “sloped roof” where the shooter sat and Cheatle said was unable to be secured. 

It’s not clear what other information lawmakers are trying to pry out of local and federal officials. Cheatle has resigned from her post, and lawmakers are pushing to ensure the next director of the agency will have to be approved by them. Biden announced there is an independent investigation into the Secret Service to determine what went wrong that led to the political violence that has lain mostly dormant for more than 30 years. 

Click here to read more about lawmakers’ forays into investigative work.

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In case you missed it 

Biden’s ‘border czar’ doesn’t want to change anything

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How Kamala is expected to break the mold of the Biden-Harris administration

For your radar

Biden will travel to Austin, Texas, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the LBJ Presidential Library at 4:30 p.m. The president is expected to lay out his plan to overhaul the Supreme Court. 

Biden will travel to Houston to pay respects to the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee at 8:30 p.m. 

2024-07-29 12:36:00, http://s.wordpress.com/mshots/v1/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonexaminer.com%2Fnews%2Fcampaigns%2F3102418%2Fwake-up-washington-examiner-biden-supreme-court-defining-harris%2F?w=600&h=450, Biden’s Supreme Court plan President Joe Biden is making good on early promises he would move to “reform” the Supreme Court. He let down his base early on when his Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States didn’t result in calling for massive overhauls to the institution. Democrats have been agitating for,

Biden’s Supreme Court plan

President Joe Biden is making good on early promises he would move to “reform” the Supreme Court. He let down his base early on when his Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States didn’t result in calling for massive overhauls to the institution. Democrats have been agitating for ethics codes, term limits, and an expanded bench for years.

It’s not likely any of the president’s demands for change on the high court are going to come to fruition, but in the final days of his time in office, Biden has laid out precisely what he wants to happen with the high court.

Breaking News Reporter Jack Birle took a look at the president’s proposal released in an op-ed for the Washington Post early Monday morning.

The gist of the reforms, Jack wrote, comes down to three major ideas that have been percolating for years and one that has been in the political bloodstream for only a few weeks.

“Biden argued for his points of reforming the high court and reversing a recent decision made by the court in an opinion piece in the Washington Post,” Jack wrote. “The president, who served in the Senate from 1973 to 2009, argued for term limits, a reformed Supreme Court ethics code, and wiping away immunity for the president for any acts.”

While most of the ideas aren’t new — presidents have been subject to term limits for decades — Biden and Democrats are particularly concerned about the court’s recent decision that offers broad immunity for presidents who are carrying out “official acts” while in office. The question came before the court in response to former President Donald Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021.

The Washington Examiner has argued the court struck an appropriate balance of protection and oversight for presidents with the decision.

“With lawfare now a routine means of weakening political opponents, the court’s 6-3 majority in Trump v. United States struck the right balance, extending the immunity presidents already enjoy in the civil context, which all nine justices support, to the criminal context,” we wrote shortly after the decision.

However, the court’s decision has caused delays in all of Trump’s trials and angered Democrats to no end.

“What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms,” Biden wrote on Monday. “We now stand in a breach.”

To counter the court, Biden is suggesting a constitutional amendment titled the “No One Is Above the Law Amendment” that would “make clear that there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office.”

Constitutional amendments are incredibly difficult to execute, and given the requirement of two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states to pass, it’s unlikely Biden’s plan will go anywhere.

Click here to read about Biden’s last attempt to fight the Supreme Court before he retires.

‘Kamala the cop’ loses its luster

Vice President Kamala Harris is in a historic position. She has been vaulted to the top of her party and is days away from cementing her position as the Democratic nominee for president with fewer than 100 days before final votes are cast. For all the excitement her swap with Biden at the top of the ticket has elicited, those short 16 weeks leave her with a massive problem. 

Harris will, of course, be hitting the trail trying to introduce and define herself to voters who only have vague memories of her 2019 campaign. Vice presidents tend to fade into the background of the public consciousness, and besides her occasional blips early on for bungling her border assignment or the odd “word salad” response that would go viral for the very online to mock, Harris is unknown at the national level. 

This week, the Washington Examiner is taking a look at the various ways Harris is going to try to define herself and how Republicans are going to take those arguments from the former prosecutor and spin them back on her.

This morning, Senior Investigations Reporter Barnini Chakraborty took a look at Harris’s record as a prosecutor and her role as the “top cop” in California before running for Senate. Harris’s history as a prosecutor spelled trouble for her in 2019 as the Left’s rage and frustration with police officers and law enforcement hit a high water mark. She tried to run on her tough-on-crime record that angered Democrats and raised Republicans’ eyebrows.

“Harris’s opinions and actions, at times, have put her at odds with both sides of the political spectrum. To those on the Right, she wasn’t tough enough,” Barnini wrote. “To those on the Left, she was too tough and didn’t do her job speaking up for marginalized communities. She’s also been accused of being a social and political climber, fixated on getting power rather than getting the job done.”

With “defund the police” fading into distant memory, Harris is reprising her prosecutorial record as a defining selling point for why she is best suited to defeat former President Donald Trump in November. 

“I took on perpetrators of all kinds, predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own game,” Harris said at a Wisconsin rally and has made a regular item in her stump speech. “So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.”

Democrats’ focus on Trump’s litany of legal struggles leaves Harris in what should be a prime position. The former president won’t be spending his time in courtrooms this fall, as his various trials have been delayed in light of the Supreme Court’s sweeping decision about presidential immunity being adjudicated. But Harris can give her supporters, and Trump’s biggest critics, the trials they have waited for. 

The only problem, as Barnini pointed out this morning, is Harris’s record is shot through with landmines. 

Early on in her time as the San Francisco district attorney, Harris angered everyone when she declined to seek the death penalty for a gang member who shot and killed a police officer. The murder angered then-California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. 

Despite the outrage by members of her own party, Harris refused to relent on her position, insisting the death penalty discriminated against poor, black, and minority defendants. 

Barnini ran through a lengthy list of problems Harris will have to address in the coming weeks. However, given her time in public office, if not in the public eye, some Democrats are saying she has already weathered the worst of the storm. If her problems as a prosecutor haven’t kept her from rising to be the first female vice president in U.S. history, Republicans might need to find another way to define her. 

Click here to read all about Harris’s struggle to reclaim her ‘good cop’ image. 

Cryptic calls from the FBI

The FBI might have the force and authority of the U.S. government behind it, but investigators are still struggling to access key information from the phone recovered from the man who shot Trump two weeks ago. 

During a hearing before Congress last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray said his agency had accessed the shooter’s phone but was locked out of some messages and apps that could reveal the motive for the assassination attempt. 

“In terms of our ability to access it, we have been able to get into and exploit a number of electronic devices, digital devices, but not all of them yet, and then within his various accounts, we’ve been able to get access to some of them, but some of them we’re still waiting on,” Wray said. “Some of them we may never get access to because of the encryption issue that presents an increasingly vexing barrier for law enforcement.” 

Those struggles, Justice Reporter Ashley Oliver wrote this morning, are due to encryption and privacy measures tech companies take to ensure their customers that some data they don’t want shared with anyone can stay private. 

Apps such as Signal, WhatsApp, and Proton Mail offer users end-to-end encryption protection that locks messages from unauthorized users. Only the sender and receiver can see the messages, and the FBI is still catching up to the technology. 

Short of breaking through the privacy firewalls themselves, the FBI and other agencies have tried to go down legal roads that would force companies to provide them with information or create backdoors in the products that would allow alternative ways in. Companies have fought subpoenas and other legal demands while outright refusing to create intentionally weak products that can be accessed by unauthorized users. 

Given the roadblocks, privacy lobbyists and activists are concerned the FBI is preparing to go all the way to the president to seek help. 

“Given the FBI’s long history of working to undermine end-to-end encryption, it’s very likely they will ask the next president to help them do it, and we can already see Director Wray laying that groundwork,” Hajar Hammado, a senior policy adviser at Demand Progress, told Ashley.

Even with the president on board, it’s not clear the FBI is going to have any success in undermining encryption protocols. Members of Congress are aware of the problems encryption can cause investigators in instances, such as investigating an attempted assassination of a former president, but appear skeptical about gutting privacy programs for everyone in other instances.

Click here to read more about the encryption versus FBI showdown playing out. 

GOP — Private eyes

There has been a lot about the investigation into the attempted assassination of Trump that Republican lawmakers have not been satisfied with. While privacy and encryption troubles have slowed things, there is more information, and answers, senators and representatives think need clarifying. 

The peak point of frustration might have been the bipartisan grilling of former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle last week. Nine days after the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, Cheatle appeared before the House Oversight Committee to answer questions about the tragic event that left one man dead and two others injured, plus the former president shot. 

Cheatle was grilled by everyone on the committee. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) asked Cheatle if she’d like to form her resignation letter then and there — something the director declined at the time but handed over a day later. 

After failing to provide the committee with answers to basic questions, GOP lawmakers took it upon themselves to go on a fact-finding mission, Senate Reporter Ramsey Touchberry wrote for us this morning. 

“Armed with accusations that federal investigators aren’t being transparent, lawmakers have obtained and unveiled new footage and details of security pitfalls that may have enabled a rooftop shooter to strike Trump from only a few hundred feet away,” Ramsey wrote. 

Lawmaker investigations have included public records requests and in-the-field walkthroughs of the shooting site. 

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) railed against the FBI, which is leading the investigation, after he used his congressional authority to obtain video footage of the shooting and released it to reporters. 

“Federal agencies ought to be embarrassed that Chuck Grassley has beaten them to the investigative punch,” Grassley told Ramsey. “My oversight won’t be letting up anytime soon.”

Another group wasn’t content to send off letters from Washington. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) took a group of lawmakers to the shooting site in Pennsylvania last week, and they walked through the grounds and climbed on top of the “sloped roof” where the shooter sat and Cheatle said was unable to be secured. 

It’s not clear what other information lawmakers are trying to pry out of local and federal officials. Cheatle has resigned from her post, and lawmakers are pushing to ensure the next director of the agency will have to be approved by them. Biden announced there is an independent investigation into the Secret Service to determine what went wrong that led to the political violence that has lain mostly dormant for more than 30 years. 

Click here to read more about lawmakers’ forays into investigative work.

New from us

Bring the national defense bill to the Senate floor

Kamala Harris expected to expand Biden’s child gender transition agenda if elected

Five conspiracy theories that have gained traction in aftermath of Trump assassination attempt

Fear over Project 2025 created ‘out of thin air,’ editor argues

What goes into picking a vice president

In case you missed it 

Biden’s ‘border czar’ doesn’t want to change anything

JD Vance is cleaning up his kitty litter mess

How Kamala is expected to break the mold of the Biden-Harris administration

For your radar

Biden will travel to Austin, Texas, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the LBJ Presidential Library at 4:30 p.m. The president is expected to lay out his plan to overhaul the Supreme Court. 

Biden will travel to Houston to pay respects to the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee at 8:30 p.m. 

, Biden’s Supreme Court plan President Joe Biden is making good on early promises he would move to “reform” the Supreme Court. He let down his base early on when his Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States didn’t result in calling for massive overhauls to the institution. Democrats have been agitating for ethics codes, term limits, and an expanded bench for years. It’s not likely any of the president’s demands for change on the high court are going to come to fruition, but in the final days of his time in office, Biden has laid out precisely what he wants to happen with the high court. Breaking News Reporter Jack Birle took a look at the president’s proposal released in an op-ed for the Washington Post early Monday morning. The gist of the reforms, Jack wrote, comes down to three major ideas that have been percolating for years and one that has been in the political bloodstream for only a few weeks. “Biden argued for his points of reforming the high court and reversing a recent decision made by the court in an opinion piece in the Washington Post,” Jack wrote. “The president, who served in the Senate from 1973 to 2009, argued for term limits, a reformed Supreme Court ethics code, and wiping away immunity for the president for any acts.” While most of the ideas aren’t new — presidents have been subject to term limits for decades — Biden and Democrats are particularly concerned about the court’s recent decision that offers broad immunity for presidents who are carrying out “official acts” while in office. The question came before the court in response to former President Donald Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021. The Washington Examiner has argued the court struck an appropriate balance of protection and oversight for presidents with the decision. “With lawfare now a routine means of weakening political opponents, the court’s 6-3 majority in Trump v. United States struck the right balance, extending the immunity presidents already enjoy in the civil context, which all nine justices support, to the criminal context,” we wrote shortly after the decision. However, the court’s decision has caused delays in all of Trump’s trials and angered Democrats to no end. “What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms,” Biden wrote on Monday. “We now stand in a breach.” To counter the court, Biden is suggesting a constitutional amendment titled the “No One Is Above the Law Amendment” that would “make clear that there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office.” Constitutional amendments are incredibly difficult to execute, and given the requirement of two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states to pass, it’s unlikely Biden’s plan will go anywhere. Click here to read about Biden’s last attempt to fight the Supreme Court before he retires. ‘Kamala the cop’ loses its luster Vice President Kamala Harris is in a historic position. She has been vaulted to the top of her party and is days away from cementing her position as the Democratic nominee for president with fewer than 100 days before final votes are cast. For all the excitement her swap with Biden at the top of the ticket has elicited, those short 16 weeks leave her with a massive problem.  Harris will, of course, be hitting the trail trying to introduce and define herself to voters who only have vague memories of her 2019 campaign. Vice presidents tend to fade into the background of the public consciousness, and besides her occasional blips early on for bungling her border assignment or the odd “word salad” response that would go viral for the very online to mock, Harris is unknown at the national level.  This week, the Washington Examiner is taking a look at the various ways Harris is going to try to define herself and how Republicans are going to take those arguments from the former prosecutor and spin them back on her. This morning, Senior Investigations Reporter Barnini Chakraborty took a look at Harris’s record as a prosecutor and her role as the “top cop” in California before running for Senate. Harris’s history as a prosecutor spelled trouble for her in 2019 as the Left’s rage and frustration with police officers and law enforcement hit a high water mark. She tried to run on her tough-on-crime record that angered Democrats and raised Republicans’ eyebrows. “Harris’s opinions and actions, at times, have put her at odds with both sides of the political spectrum. To those on the Right, she wasn’t tough enough,” Barnini wrote. “To those on the Left, she was too tough and didn’t do her job speaking up for marginalized communities. She’s also been accused of being a social and political climber, fixated on getting power rather than getting the job done.” With “defund the police” fading into distant memory, Harris is reprising her prosecutorial record as a defining selling point for why she is best suited to defeat former President Donald Trump in November.  “I took on perpetrators of all kinds, predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own game,” Harris said at a Wisconsin rally and has made a regular item in her stump speech. “So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.” Democrats’ focus on Trump’s litany of legal struggles leaves Harris in what should be a prime position. The former president won’t be spending his time in courtrooms this fall, as his various trials have been delayed in light of the Supreme Court’s sweeping decision about presidential immunity being adjudicated. But Harris can give her supporters, and Trump’s biggest critics, the trials they have waited for.  The only problem, as Barnini pointed out this morning, is Harris’s record is shot through with landmines.  Early on in her time as the San Francisco district attorney, Harris angered everyone when she declined to seek the death penalty for a gang member who shot and killed a police officer. The murder angered then-California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.  Despite the outrage by members of her own party, Harris refused to relent on her position, insisting the death penalty discriminated against poor, black, and minority defendants.  Barnini ran through a lengthy list of problems Harris will have to address in the coming weeks. However, given her time in public office, if not in the public eye, some Democrats are saying she has already weathered the worst of the storm. If her problems as a prosecutor haven’t kept her from rising to be the first female vice president in U.S. history, Republicans might need to find another way to define her.  Click here to read all about Harris’s struggle to reclaim her ‘good cop’ image.  Cryptic calls from the FBI The FBI might have the force and authority of the U.S. government behind it, but investigators are still struggling to access key information from the phone recovered from the man who shot Trump two weeks ago.  During a hearing before Congress last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray said his agency had accessed the shooter’s phone but was locked out of some messages and apps that could reveal the motive for the assassination attempt.  “In terms of our ability to access it, we have been able to get into and exploit a number of electronic devices, digital devices, but not all of them yet, and then within his various accounts, we’ve been able to get access to some of them, but some of them we’re still waiting on,” Wray said. “Some of them we may never get access to because of the encryption issue that presents an increasingly vexing barrier for law enforcement.”  Those struggles, Justice Reporter Ashley Oliver wrote this morning, are due to encryption and privacy measures tech companies take to ensure their customers that some data they don’t want shared with anyone can stay private.  Apps such as Signal, WhatsApp, and Proton Mail offer users end-to-end encryption protection that locks messages from unauthorized users. Only the sender and receiver can see the messages, and the FBI is still catching up to the technology.  Short of breaking through the privacy firewalls themselves, the FBI and other agencies have tried to go down legal roads that would force companies to provide them with information or create backdoors in the products that would allow alternative ways in. Companies have fought subpoenas and other legal demands while outright refusing to create intentionally weak products that can be accessed by unauthorized users.  Given the roadblocks, privacy lobbyists and activists are concerned the FBI is preparing to go all the way to the president to seek help.  “Given the FBI’s long history of working to undermine end-to-end encryption, it’s very likely they will ask the next president to help them do it, and we can already see Director Wray laying that groundwork,” Hajar Hammado, a senior policy adviser at Demand Progress, told Ashley. Even with the president on board, it’s not clear the FBI is going to have any success in undermining encryption protocols. Members of Congress are aware of the problems encryption can cause investigators in instances, such as investigating an attempted assassination of a former president, but appear skeptical about gutting privacy programs for everyone in other instances. Click here to read more about the encryption versus FBI showdown playing out.  GOP — Private eyes There has been a lot about the investigation into the attempted assassination of Trump that Republican lawmakers have not been satisfied with. While privacy and encryption troubles have slowed things, there is more information, and answers, senators and representatives think need clarifying.  The peak point of frustration might have been the bipartisan grilling of former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle last week. Nine days after the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, Cheatle appeared before the House Oversight Committee to answer questions about the tragic event that left one man dead and two others injured, plus the former president shot.  Cheatle was grilled by everyone on the committee. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) asked Cheatle if she’d like to form her resignation letter then and there — something the director declined at the time but handed over a day later.  After failing to provide the committee with answers to basic questions, GOP lawmakers took it upon themselves to go on a fact-finding mission, Senate Reporter Ramsey Touchberry wrote for us this morning.  “Armed with accusations that federal investigators aren’t being transparent, lawmakers have obtained and unveiled new footage and details of security pitfalls that may have enabled a rooftop shooter to strike Trump from only a few hundred feet away,” Ramsey wrote.  Lawmaker investigations have included public records requests and in-the-field walkthroughs of the shooting site.  Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) railed against the FBI, which is leading the investigation, after he used his congressional authority to obtain video footage of the shooting and released it to reporters.  “Federal agencies ought to be embarrassed that Chuck Grassley has beaten them to the investigative punch,” Grassley told Ramsey. “My oversight won’t be letting up anytime soon.” Another group wasn’t content to send off letters from Washington. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) took a group of lawmakers to the shooting site in Pennsylvania last week, and they walked through the grounds and climbed on top of the “sloped roof” where the shooter sat and Cheatle said was unable to be secured.  It’s not clear what other information lawmakers are trying to pry out of local and federal officials. Cheatle has resigned from her post, and lawmakers are pushing to ensure the next director of the agency will have to be approved by them. Biden announced there is an independent investigation into the Secret Service to determine what went wrong that led to the political violence that has lain mostly dormant for more than 30 years.  Click here to read more about lawmakers’ forays into investigative work. New from us Bring the national defense bill to the Senate floor Kamala Harris expected to expand Biden’s child gender transition agenda if elected Five conspiracy theories that have gained traction in aftermath of Trump assassination attempt Fear over Project 2025 created ‘out of thin air,’ editor argues What goes into picking a vice president In case you missed it  Biden’s ‘border czar’ doesn’t want to change anything JD Vance is cleaning up his kitty litter mess How Kamala is expected to break the mold of the Biden-Harris administration For your radar Biden will travel to Austin, Texas, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the LBJ Presidential Library at 4:30 p.m. The president is expected to lay out his plan to overhaul the Supreme Court.  Biden will travel to Houston to pay respects to the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee at 8:30 p.m. , , , https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/kamala-harris-define.webp, Washington Examiner, Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-favicon-32×32.png, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feed/, Max Thornberry,

Democrats know they aren’t tying themselves to President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket in November. They will almost certainly be attached to Vice President Kamala Harris as their party’s presidential standard-bearer. Yet it’s unclear whether chopping half of the Biden-Harris ticket will improve downballot candidates’ odds of winning pivotal contests that could determine control of the House and Senate.

The unraveling of Biden’s reelection campaign was quick. It began with a disastrous debate performance on June 27 against former President Donald Trump, now the 2024 Republican nominee. It was followed up by two weeks of fending off an angry press corps and ended with a letter posted on X saying he was quitting the race, without any notice for Cabinet members or campaign staff. 

Biden was under immense pressure from the most powerful forces in his party to bow out of the contest, and his presence at the top of the ticket acted as a lead weight around the necks of downballot Democrats. Constant questions about whether the president was fit to complete his term, much less run for reelection, threatened to dampen Democratic spirits, all at a politically sensitive time, with House Democrats needing to net four seats in November to claim a majority and Senate Democrats trying to hold on to their perilous control of the chamber, with 51 seats to 49 for Republicans.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was reportedly prepared to present Biden with polling that contradicted what his inner circle was telling him and showed precisely how untenable the situation had become. If he didn’t step aside, Democrats were heading for defeat not only in swing states but in safe blue regions such as Virginia and New Mexico as well.

Bowing out of the 2024 contest wasn’t how Biden imagined his career would end. But he was lauded for his efforts as Democrats quickly turned from despair to delight. 

“President Biden’s love of country and loyalty to the American people has been unwavering. He will undoubtedly go down in the history books as a true American patriot,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said in a statement. “I believe Vice President Harris has the experience, energy, and resolve to lead our nation and defeat Donald Trump and his backward agenda.”

But while Democrats sang Biden’s praises after he took himself out of contention, they were preparing to sever public ties with him days earlier. 

Election analyst David Wasserman told the Washington Examiner Democrats had been trying to separate themselves from Biden and Harris in some of the most competitive regions in the country. And that strategy isn’t likely to change unless Harris shows that the energy and excitement she has generated in the early days of her campaign is more than a political sugar high. 

“The big question mark is what she does to Democrats in more blue-collar rural districts where she might be a harder sell,” Wasserman said. “The strategy for Democrats in those places is going to be to continue to cut and run from the top of the ticket. … I suspect that will still be the case if Kamala Harris is the nominee.”

Republicans have scrambled to change their messaging that was centered on attacking Biden to focusing their rhetorical fire on Harris. Shifting their focus to Biden’s No. 2 required some tweaking but allowed them to carry on criticizing the projects and policies of the current administration with a slightly different emphasis. 

A memo circulated by the National Republican Senatorial Committee laid out a clear path for Republicans who don’t appear daunted by the Democratic change in plans. 

“San Francisco radical Kamala Harris is seizing the Democrat nomination from Scranton Joe Biden,” NRSC Executive Director Jason Thielman wrote. ”Democrats subverted the democratic process to anoint Kamala Harris with no input from their voters, and Republicans must be ready to shift gears.” 

“Furthermore, Kamala Harris creates a strong downballot opportunity for Republicans. The case against Joe Biden relied in part on the fact that he was mentally unfit to hold office, which was difficult to translate downballot. Kamala Harris owns the Biden Administration’s baggage and is an avowed radical. An endorsement of Kamala Harris is an endorsement of her extreme agenda, and Harris is arguably a bigger threat to Democrats’ Senate majority than Joe Biden.”

A dueling memo from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee only hinted at the drama at the top of the ticket, focused on huge cash and polling advantages front-line Democrats have compared to vulnerable Republicans. 

“Despite a volatile month of ever-evolving political news, House Democrats remain well-positioned to win back the majority this fall,” according to the memo. “Thanks to our continued fundraising advantage, the individual strengths of our Frontliners and Red to Blue challengers, and a stark contrast between the forward-looking agenda of House Democrats and MAGA extremism, the DCCC is confident that we will retake the Majority and get the House back to work For the People.”

Swapping candidates has resulted in a surge for Democrats. Harris reported bringing in $100 million in her first 24 hours and signing up 30,000 volunteers for her campaign. The same can’t be said for Republicans, who have been mobilized and energized for months in response to Trump’s legal woes. 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

It’s not clear if either peaked too soon or whether Harris will have enough runway to define herself before voters go to the polls in roughly 100 days. 

Democrats feel like they’re back in the game after taking a third-quarter pounding, but it might be too little, too late. 

2024-07-26 09:40:00, http://s.wordpress.com/mshots/v1/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonexaminer.com%2Fpremium%2F3097351%2Fdemocrats-top-of-the-ticket-switch-to-harris-leaves-congressional-race-chances-murky%2F?w=600&h=450, Democrats know they aren’t tying themselves to President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket in November. They will almost certainly be attached to Vice President Kamala Harris as their party’s presidential standard-bearer. Yet it’s unclear whether chopping half of the Biden-Harris ticket will improve downballot candidates’ odds of winning pivotal contests that could,

Democrats know they aren’t tying themselves to President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket in November. They will almost certainly be attached to Vice President Kamala Harris as their party’s presidential standard-bearer. Yet it’s unclear whether chopping half of the Biden-Harris ticket will improve downballot candidates’ odds of winning pivotal contests that could determine control of the House and Senate.

The unraveling of Biden’s reelection campaign was quick. It began with a disastrous debate performance on June 27 against former President Donald Trump, now the 2024 Republican nominee. It was followed up by two weeks of fending off an angry press corps and ended with a letter posted on X saying he was quitting the race, without any notice for Cabinet members or campaign staff. 

Biden was under immense pressure from the most powerful forces in his party to bow out of the contest, and his presence at the top of the ticket acted as a lead weight around the necks of downballot Democrats. Constant questions about whether the president was fit to complete his term, much less run for reelection, threatened to dampen Democratic spirits, all at a politically sensitive time, with House Democrats needing to net four seats in November to claim a majority and Senate Democrats trying to hold on to their perilous control of the chamber, with 51 seats to 49 for Republicans.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was reportedly prepared to present Biden with polling that contradicted what his inner circle was telling him and showed precisely how untenable the situation had become. If he didn’t step aside, Democrats were heading for defeat not only in swing states but in safe blue regions such as Virginia and New Mexico as well.

Bowing out of the 2024 contest wasn’t how Biden imagined his career would end. But he was lauded for his efforts as Democrats quickly turned from despair to delight. 

“President Biden’s love of country and loyalty to the American people has been unwavering. He will undoubtedly go down in the history books as a true American patriot,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said in a statement. “I believe Vice President Harris has the experience, energy, and resolve to lead our nation and defeat Donald Trump and his backward agenda.”

But while Democrats sang Biden’s praises after he took himself out of contention, they were preparing to sever public ties with him days earlier. 

Election analyst David Wasserman told the Washington Examiner Democrats had been trying to separate themselves from Biden and Harris in some of the most competitive regions in the country. And that strategy isn’t likely to change unless Harris shows that the energy and excitement she has generated in the early days of her campaign is more than a political sugar high. 

“The big question mark is what she does to Democrats in more blue-collar rural districts where she might be a harder sell,” Wasserman said. “The strategy for Democrats in those places is going to be to continue to cut and run from the top of the ticket. … I suspect that will still be the case if Kamala Harris is the nominee.”

Republicans have scrambled to change their messaging that was centered on attacking Biden to focusing their rhetorical fire on Harris. Shifting their focus to Biden’s No. 2 required some tweaking but allowed them to carry on criticizing the projects and policies of the current administration with a slightly different emphasis. 

A memo circulated by the National Republican Senatorial Committee laid out a clear path for Republicans who don’t appear daunted by the Democratic change in plans. 

“San Francisco radical Kamala Harris is seizing the Democrat nomination from Scranton Joe Biden,” NRSC Executive Director Jason Thielman wrote. ”Democrats subverted the democratic process to anoint Kamala Harris with no input from their voters, and Republicans must be ready to shift gears.” 

“Furthermore, Kamala Harris creates a strong downballot opportunity for Republicans. The case against Joe Biden relied in part on the fact that he was mentally unfit to hold office, which was difficult to translate downballot. Kamala Harris owns the Biden Administration’s baggage and is an avowed radical. An endorsement of Kamala Harris is an endorsement of her extreme agenda, and Harris is arguably a bigger threat to Democrats’ Senate majority than Joe Biden.”

A dueling memo from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee only hinted at the drama at the top of the ticket, focused on huge cash and polling advantages front-line Democrats have compared to vulnerable Republicans. 

“Despite a volatile month of ever-evolving political news, House Democrats remain well-positioned to win back the majority this fall,” according to the memo. “Thanks to our continued fundraising advantage, the individual strengths of our Frontliners and Red to Blue challengers, and a stark contrast between the forward-looking agenda of House Democrats and MAGA extremism, the DCCC is confident that we will retake the Majority and get the House back to work For the People.”

Swapping candidates has resulted in a surge for Democrats. Harris reported bringing in $100 million in her first 24 hours and signing up 30,000 volunteers for her campaign. The same can’t be said for Republicans, who have been mobilized and energized for months in response to Trump’s legal woes. 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

It’s not clear if either peaked too soon or whether Harris will have enough runway to define herself before voters go to the polls in roughly 100 days. 

Democrats feel like they’re back in the game after taking a third-quarter pounding, but it might be too little, too late. 

, Democrats know they aren’t tying themselves to President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket in November. They will almost certainly be attached to Vice President Kamala Harris as their party’s presidential standard-bearer. Yet it’s unclear whether chopping half of the Biden-Harris ticket will improve downballot candidates’ odds of winning pivotal contests that could determine control of the House and Senate. The unraveling of Biden’s reelection campaign was quick. It began with a disastrous debate performance on June 27 against former President Donald Trump, now the 2024 Republican nominee. It was followed up by two weeks of fending off an angry press corps and ended with a letter posted on X saying he was quitting the race, without any notice for Cabinet members or campaign staff.  Biden was under immense pressure from the most powerful forces in his party to bow out of the contest, and his presence at the top of the ticket acted as a lead weight around the necks of downballot Democrats. Constant questions about whether the president was fit to complete his term, much less run for reelection, threatened to dampen Democratic spirits, all at a politically sensitive time, with House Democrats needing to net four seats in November to claim a majority and Senate Democrats trying to hold on to their perilous control of the chamber, with 51 seats to 49 for Republicans. President Joe Biden hugs Vice President Kamala Harris during a campaign event on May 29. (Evan Vucci/AP) Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was reportedly prepared to present Biden with polling that contradicted what his inner circle was telling him and showed precisely how untenable the situation had become. If he didn’t step aside, Democrats were heading for defeat not only in swing states but in safe blue regions such as Virginia and New Mexico as well. Bowing out of the 2024 contest wasn’t how Biden imagined his career would end. But he was lauded for his efforts as Democrats quickly turned from despair to delight.  “President Biden’s love of country and loyalty to the American people has been unwavering. He will undoubtedly go down in the history books as a true American patriot,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said in a statement. “I believe Vice President Harris has the experience, energy, and resolve to lead our nation and defeat Donald Trump and his backward agenda.” But while Democrats sang Biden’s praises after he took himself out of contention, they were preparing to sever public ties with him days earlier.  Election analyst David Wasserman told the Washington Examiner Democrats had been trying to separate themselves from Biden and Harris in some of the most competitive regions in the country. And that strategy isn’t likely to change unless Harris shows that the energy and excitement she has generated in the early days of her campaign is more than a political sugar high.  “The big question mark is what she does to Democrats in more blue-collar rural districts where she might be a harder sell,” Wasserman said. “The strategy for Democrats in those places is going to be to continue to cut and run from the top of the ticket. … I suspect that will still be the case if Kamala Harris is the nominee.” President Joe Biden poses for a photo with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., during the Congressional Picnic on the South Lawn of the White House, Tuesday, July 12, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) Republicans have scrambled to change their messaging that was centered on attacking Biden to focusing their rhetorical fire on Harris. Shifting their focus to Biden’s No. 2 required some tweaking but allowed them to carry on criticizing the projects and policies of the current administration with a slightly different emphasis.  A memo circulated by the National Republican Senatorial Committee laid out a clear path for Republicans who don’t appear daunted by the Democratic change in plans.  “San Francisco radical Kamala Harris is seizing the Democrat nomination from Scranton Joe Biden,” NRSC Executive Director Jason Thielman wrote. ”Democrats subverted the democratic process to anoint Kamala Harris with no input from their voters, and Republicans must be ready to shift gears.”  “Furthermore, Kamala Harris creates a strong downballot opportunity for Republicans. The case against Joe Biden relied in part on the fact that he was mentally unfit to hold office, which was difficult to translate downballot. Kamala Harris owns the Biden Administration’s baggage and is an avowed radical. An endorsement of Kamala Harris is an endorsement of her extreme agenda, and Harris is arguably a bigger threat to Democrats’ Senate majority than Joe Biden.” A dueling memo from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee only hinted at the drama at the top of the ticket, focused on huge cash and polling advantages front-line Democrats have compared to vulnerable Republicans.  Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, heads to the chamber as senators arrive for the final votes of the week, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, May 4, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) “Despite a volatile month of ever-evolving political news, House Democrats remain well-positioned to win back the majority this fall,” according to the memo. “Thanks to our continued fundraising advantage, the individual strengths of our Frontliners and Red to Blue challengers, and a stark contrast between the forward-looking agenda of House Democrats and MAGA extremism, the DCCC is confident that we will retake the Majority and get the House back to work For the People.” Swapping candidates has resulted in a surge for Democrats. Harris reported bringing in $100 million in her first 24 hours and signing up 30,000 volunteers for her campaign. The same can’t be said for Republicans, who have been mobilized and energized for months in response to Trump’s legal woes.  CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER It’s not clear if either peaked too soon or whether Harris will have enough runway to define herself before voters go to the polls in roughly 100 days.  Democrats feel like they’re back in the game after taking a third-quarter pounding, but it might be too little, too late. , , , https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/WB.Congress-073124.webp, Washington Examiner, Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-favicon-32×32.png, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feed/, Max Thornberry,

Is DEI about to die?

Simmering in the background of this political moment and starting to boil over at various points in the last two weeks, the culture war question about diversity, equity, and inclusion has continued to rage. The hot-button topic was all the rage when the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action rules in admissions procedures for public universities. And it roared back to life when former President Donald Trump was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, with many of his biggest boosters asking whether the women guarding him were physically up to the task. 

Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle bore the brunt of DEI complaints for her agency before resigning on Tuesday. Cheatle was blasted for comments she made when she was appointed that diversity was going to be at the top of her mind when recruiting new agents. 

Vice President Kamala Harris is undergoing a similar DEI test now that President Joe Biden has abdicated his reelection campaign in favor of his No. 2. Harris appeared to get her vice presidential appointment as a result of Biden making promises to recruit a woman, and then promising to bring on a black woman, to his campaign in 2020. Biden-Harris boosters say there wouldn’t be any question about another president handing the reins to his vice president and that Harris is suffering from a uniquely sexist and racist brand of scrutiny. 

But as DEI bubbles back up into the public consciousness, Education Reporter Breccan Thies wrote that it is being pressed down in institutions, even if it isn’t being expelled. 

“After comprehensive buy-in across the institutional powers of corporations, government, and higher education, diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology has more recently left a negative impression on many people who increasingly see the movement as anti-meritocratic and even racist or sexist,” Breccan wrote. 

Once in vogue, full-throated praise and defense of DEI policies is waning, Charles Lipson, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, told Breccan. 

“We’re seeing a tectonic shift in public attitudes,” Lipson said. “I think that public attitudes for a long time were tolerant of DEI initiatives on the grounds that they were making up for historical inequities, but the public has also seen that we are now six decades past the Civil Rights Act and that this kind of compensation has to have a sunset.”

Those public attitudes have tended to push DEI efforts underground more often than out of institutions completely. Consumer pressure has influenced major companies such as Deere & Company, the maker of John Deere tractors, Tractor Supply, Zoom, Snap, Tesla, DoorDash, Lyft, Home Depot, and Wayfair to make alterations to their DEI departments, while companies like Microsoft have opted to cut “equity” while they continue apace with “D&I” initiatives, Breccan wrote. 

Click here to read more about the future of DEI.

Good karma with Kamala

Democrats are waking up. After months of slogging through a 2020 retread, Harris taking over the top of the ticket has juiced donor and volunteer efforts and given weary Democrats a new lease on political life. 

Biden’s decision to hand control of the party’s future to Harris has given the party a bounce where it was resigned to defeat. The electoral map was looking grim, not only for Biden but for down-ballot candidates in fierce fights that will determine control of the House and Senate next year. White House Reporter Naomi Lim wrote for us this morning that the historic shake-up has given Democrats a confidence boost that could result in shattering the low expectations some were beginning to have for 2024. 

“Under President Joe Biden, battleground states Arizona and Georgia were at risk of becoming out of reach due to mounting concerns over his age despite him flipping them for the first time in decades only four years ago,” Naomi wrote. “But with Harris replacing him at the top of the ticket, Democrats are arguing those states, in addition to a third, Nevada, are back in play.” 

Running with Harris will bring a new set of complications and complements to Democratic plans. Harris, who ran to the left of Biden in 2019, will appeal to different segments of the party. Her position as the first black, female, South Asian vice president, who also happens to be nearly two decades younger than her boss, also changes the demographics she can appeal to. 

“Harris’s early polling among white voters, particularly those without a college degree, is poised to make sure that this November’s election remains a close contest, while Rust Belt states Biden had found success in, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, could be harder for her to win,” Naomi wrote. 

Those are key states to secure if Harris wants to take up residence in the White House. However, Harris is expected to have far more appeal for the young, female, and minority voters in the Rust Belt states that have been leaning Democratic and only appeared to wobble as questions blared about Biden’s fitness to serve. 

There is also excitement about revamped leadership in the Sun Belt. Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada round out the most important states that appear to be up for grabs in November, and new blood means Trump and Republicans will have to divert even more resources to win there. 

Biden won every single one of those six states in 2020. 

Click here to read more about the Democrats’ newfound confidence. 

More money, more problems 

Harris used her first campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to tear into Trump, specifically criticizing his reliance on lobbyists and corporations to bankroll his campaign. She said he relies on support from billionaires and big corporations and accused him of “trading access in exchange for campaign contributions.” 

The barbs came as she touted her own “people-powered” campaign that received thousands of donors contributing to her $100 million haul in the hours after Biden endorsed her and she announced she was running to replace him. 

However, despite her promise the last time she ran for president not to accept donations from Big Money interests, her record isn’t squeaky clean, Investigative Reporter Gabe Kaminsky wrote. 

“Harris, through her then-presidential campaign and other committees, accepted donations during the 2020 race from both lobbyists and PACs affiliated with corporations. Now, as Harris assumes control over the tens of millions of dollars in Biden’s war chest following his decision not to run for reelection, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is being boosted once more by corporate-funded PACs and K Street, records show,” Gabe wrote.

It’s not easy to stay away from corporate money. All of a politician’s best efforts to keep their pots of cash separate are complicated because “money has so many avenues to flow into elections now,” Craig Holman, an ethics lobbyist for the progressive Public Citizen think tank, told Gabe. 

“I wish everybody would take the pledge not to take corporate and lobbyist money. But it’s going to get in elections no matter what,” added Holman, who said the Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 Citizens United v. FEC ruling “opened up the floodgates” for special interests to fuel campaigns.

And questions about where she got her cash aren’t limited to what she hauled in last time out. There are also possible legal challenges that could hold up the roughly $90 million she and Biden raised previously that was transferred to her as the new nominee. 

Supreme Court Reporter Kaelan Deese wrote this morning for us that an FEC complaint could derail one of the strongest cases Harris had for being the consensus pick to replace Biden. 

“One of the top questions over whether Harris can smoothly slide into what was once Biden’s Democratic nomination is whether her campaign can easily inherit the $91.5 million leftover from what was the Biden campaign,” Kaelan wrote. “The uncertainty was underscored on Tuesday when former President Donald Trump’s campaign filed a complaint to the Federal Election Commission against Biden and Harris, accusing them of violating campaign finance laws by sending the president’s funds over to the vice president.” 

Republicans might back off their designs on legal challenges to force states to keep Biden on their ballots in favor of cutting Harris’s purse strings. 

FEC Chairman Sean Cooksey, a Trump appointee, raised questions about whether the Biden war chest transfer to Harris was above board in a series of posts online. 

“If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated …, or reattributed …, as appropriate,” Cooksey posted to X, citing Section 110.1(b)(3) of federal campaign finance regulations.

Click here to read more about Harris’s broken promises and the new financial challenges she will have to face.

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For your radar

Harris will head to Indiana to deliver the keynote speech at Zeta Phi Beta Sorority’s Grand Boulé at 12:45 p.m. before she travels to Houston, Texas. 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will hold a briefing at 2 p.m. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address Congress at 2 p.m.

Biden will give an Oval Office address at 8 p.m. to discuss his decision to withdraw from the 2024 race.

2024-07-24 12:57:00, http://s.wordpress.com/mshots/v1/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonexaminer.com%2Fnews%2Fcampaigns%2F3096919%2Fwashington-examiner-future-dei-democrats-delight-money-problems-harris%2F?w=600&h=450, Is DEI about to die? Simmering in the background of this political moment and starting to boil over at various points in the last two weeks, the culture war question about diversity, equity, and inclusion has continued to rage. The hot-button topic was all the rage when the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action rules,

Is DEI about to die?

Simmering in the background of this political moment and starting to boil over at various points in the last two weeks, the culture war question about diversity, equity, and inclusion has continued to rage. The hot-button topic was all the rage when the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action rules in admissions procedures for public universities. And it roared back to life when former President Donald Trump was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, with many of his biggest boosters asking whether the women guarding him were physically up to the task. 

Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle bore the brunt of DEI complaints for her agency before resigning on Tuesday. Cheatle was blasted for comments she made when she was appointed that diversity was going to be at the top of her mind when recruiting new agents. 

Vice President Kamala Harris is undergoing a similar DEI test now that President Joe Biden has abdicated his reelection campaign in favor of his No. 2. Harris appeared to get her vice presidential appointment as a result of Biden making promises to recruit a woman, and then promising to bring on a black woman, to his campaign in 2020. Biden-Harris boosters say there wouldn’t be any question about another president handing the reins to his vice president and that Harris is suffering from a uniquely sexist and racist brand of scrutiny. 

But as DEI bubbles back up into the public consciousness, Education Reporter Breccan Thies wrote that it is being pressed down in institutions, even if it isn’t being expelled. 

“After comprehensive buy-in across the institutional powers of corporations, government, and higher education, diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology has more recently left a negative impression on many people who increasingly see the movement as anti-meritocratic and even racist or sexist,” Breccan wrote. 

Once in vogue, full-throated praise and defense of DEI policies is waning, Charles Lipson, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, told Breccan. 

“We’re seeing a tectonic shift in public attitudes,” Lipson said. “I think that public attitudes for a long time were tolerant of DEI initiatives on the grounds that they were making up for historical inequities, but the public has also seen that we are now six decades past the Civil Rights Act and that this kind of compensation has to have a sunset.”

Those public attitudes have tended to push DEI efforts underground more often than out of institutions completely. Consumer pressure has influenced major companies such as Deere & Company, the maker of John Deere tractors, Tractor Supply, Zoom, Snap, Tesla, DoorDash, Lyft, Home Depot, and Wayfair to make alterations to their DEI departments, while companies like Microsoft have opted to cut “equity” while they continue apace with “D&I” initiatives, Breccan wrote. 

Click here to read more about the future of DEI.

Good karma with Kamala

Democrats are waking up. After months of slogging through a 2020 retread, Harris taking over the top of the ticket has juiced donor and volunteer efforts and given weary Democrats a new lease on political life. 

Biden’s decision to hand control of the party’s future to Harris has given the party a bounce where it was resigned to defeat. The electoral map was looking grim, not only for Biden but for down-ballot candidates in fierce fights that will determine control of the House and Senate next year. White House Reporter Naomi Lim wrote for us this morning that the historic shake-up has given Democrats a confidence boost that could result in shattering the low expectations some were beginning to have for 2024. 

“Under President Joe Biden, battleground states Arizona and Georgia were at risk of becoming out of reach due to mounting concerns over his age despite him flipping them for the first time in decades only four years ago,” Naomi wrote. “But with Harris replacing him at the top of the ticket, Democrats are arguing those states, in addition to a third, Nevada, are back in play.” 

Running with Harris will bring a new set of complications and complements to Democratic plans. Harris, who ran to the left of Biden in 2019, will appeal to different segments of the party. Her position as the first black, female, South Asian vice president, who also happens to be nearly two decades younger than her boss, also changes the demographics she can appeal to. 

“Harris’s early polling among white voters, particularly those without a college degree, is poised to make sure that this November’s election remains a close contest, while Rust Belt states Biden had found success in, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, could be harder for her to win,” Naomi wrote. 

Those are key states to secure if Harris wants to take up residence in the White House. However, Harris is expected to have far more appeal for the young, female, and minority voters in the Rust Belt states that have been leaning Democratic and only appeared to wobble as questions blared about Biden’s fitness to serve. 

There is also excitement about revamped leadership in the Sun Belt. Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada round out the most important states that appear to be up for grabs in November, and new blood means Trump and Republicans will have to divert even more resources to win there. 

Biden won every single one of those six states in 2020. 

Click here to read more about the Democrats’ newfound confidence. 

More money, more problems 

Harris used her first campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to tear into Trump, specifically criticizing his reliance on lobbyists and corporations to bankroll his campaign. She said he relies on support from billionaires and big corporations and accused him of “trading access in exchange for campaign contributions.” 

The barbs came as she touted her own “people-powered” campaign that received thousands of donors contributing to her $100 million haul in the hours after Biden endorsed her and she announced she was running to replace him. 

However, despite her promise the last time she ran for president not to accept donations from Big Money interests, her record isn’t squeaky clean, Investigative Reporter Gabe Kaminsky wrote. 

“Harris, through her then-presidential campaign and other committees, accepted donations during the 2020 race from both lobbyists and PACs affiliated with corporations. Now, as Harris assumes control over the tens of millions of dollars in Biden’s war chest following his decision not to run for reelection, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is being boosted once more by corporate-funded PACs and K Street, records show,” Gabe wrote.

It’s not easy to stay away from corporate money. All of a politician’s best efforts to keep their pots of cash separate are complicated because “money has so many avenues to flow into elections now,” Craig Holman, an ethics lobbyist for the progressive Public Citizen think tank, told Gabe. 

“I wish everybody would take the pledge not to take corporate and lobbyist money. But it’s going to get in elections no matter what,” added Holman, who said the Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 Citizens United v. FEC ruling “opened up the floodgates” for special interests to fuel campaigns.

And questions about where she got her cash aren’t limited to what she hauled in last time out. There are also possible legal challenges that could hold up the roughly $90 million she and Biden raised previously that was transferred to her as the new nominee. 

Supreme Court Reporter Kaelan Deese wrote this morning for us that an FEC complaint could derail one of the strongest cases Harris had for being the consensus pick to replace Biden. 

“One of the top questions over whether Harris can smoothly slide into what was once Biden’s Democratic nomination is whether her campaign can easily inherit the $91.5 million leftover from what was the Biden campaign,” Kaelan wrote. “The uncertainty was underscored on Tuesday when former President Donald Trump’s campaign filed a complaint to the Federal Election Commission against Biden and Harris, accusing them of violating campaign finance laws by sending the president’s funds over to the vice president.” 

Republicans might back off their designs on legal challenges to force states to keep Biden on their ballots in favor of cutting Harris’s purse strings. 

FEC Chairman Sean Cooksey, a Trump appointee, raised questions about whether the Biden war chest transfer to Harris was above board in a series of posts online. 

“If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated …, or reattributed …, as appropriate,” Cooksey posted to X, citing Section 110.1(b)(3) of federal campaign finance regulations.

Click here to read more about Harris’s broken promises and the new financial challenges she will have to face.

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Anti-Israel activists who sought to oust Biden and disrupt DNC put pressure on Harris

Wray to face questions about FBI inquiry into Trump assassination attempt

Blinken praises Kamala Harris’s foreign policy chops

GOP Michigan Senate contender backs key Trump trade priority

In case you missed it

Not all Democrats think Kamala Harris has the nomination locked up

Trump is rethinking his venues for rallies

Hillary Clinton wants credit for Kamala

For your radar

Harris will head to Indiana to deliver the keynote speech at Zeta Phi Beta Sorority’s Grand Boulé at 12:45 p.m. before she travels to Houston, Texas. 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will hold a briefing at 2 p.m. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address Congress at 2 p.m.

Biden will give an Oval Office address at 8 p.m. to discuss his decision to withdraw from the 2024 race.

, Is DEI about to die? Simmering in the background of this political moment and starting to boil over at various points in the last two weeks, the culture war question about diversity, equity, and inclusion has continued to rage. The hot-button topic was all the rage when the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action rules in admissions procedures for public universities. And it roared back to life when former President Donald Trump was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, with many of his biggest boosters asking whether the women guarding him were physically up to the task.  Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle bore the brunt of DEI complaints for her agency before resigning on Tuesday. Cheatle was blasted for comments she made when she was appointed that diversity was going to be at the top of her mind when recruiting new agents.  Vice President Kamala Harris is undergoing a similar DEI test now that President Joe Biden has abdicated his reelection campaign in favor of his No. 2. Harris appeared to get her vice presidential appointment as a result of Biden making promises to recruit a woman, and then promising to bring on a black woman, to his campaign in 2020. Biden-Harris boosters say there wouldn’t be any question about another president handing the reins to his vice president and that Harris is suffering from a uniquely sexist and racist brand of scrutiny.  But as DEI bubbles back up into the public consciousness, Education Reporter Breccan Thies wrote that it is being pressed down in institutions, even if it isn’t being expelled.  “After comprehensive buy-in across the institutional powers of corporations, government, and higher education, diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology has more recently left a negative impression on many people who increasingly see the movement as anti-meritocratic and even racist or sexist,” Breccan wrote.  Once in vogue, full-throated praise and defense of DEI policies is waning, Charles Lipson, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, told Breccan.  “We’re seeing a tectonic shift in public attitudes,” Lipson said. “I think that public attitudes for a long time were tolerant of DEI initiatives on the grounds that they were making up for historical inequities, but the public has also seen that we are now six decades past the Civil Rights Act and that this kind of compensation has to have a sunset.” Those public attitudes have tended to push DEI efforts underground more often than out of institutions completely. Consumer pressure has influenced major companies such as Deere & Company, the maker of John Deere tractors, Tractor Supply, Zoom, Snap, Tesla, DoorDash, Lyft, Home Depot, and Wayfair to make alterations to their DEI departments, while companies like Microsoft have opted to cut “equity” while they continue apace with “D&I” initiatives, Breccan wrote.  Click here to read more about the future of DEI. Good karma with Kamala Democrats are waking up. After months of slogging through a 2020 retread, Harris taking over the top of the ticket has juiced donor and volunteer efforts and given weary Democrats a new lease on political life.  Biden’s decision to hand control of the party’s future to Harris has given the party a bounce where it was resigned to defeat. The electoral map was looking grim, not only for Biden but for down-ballot candidates in fierce fights that will determine control of the House and Senate next year. White House Reporter Naomi Lim wrote for us this morning that the historic shake-up has given Democrats a confidence boost that could result in shattering the low expectations some were beginning to have for 2024.  “Under President Joe Biden, battleground states Arizona and Georgia were at risk of becoming out of reach due to mounting concerns over his age despite him flipping them for the first time in decades only four years ago,” Naomi wrote. “But with Harris replacing him at the top of the ticket, Democrats are arguing those states, in addition to a third, Nevada, are back in play.”  Running with Harris will bring a new set of complications and complements to Democratic plans. Harris, who ran to the left of Biden in 2019, will appeal to different segments of the party. Her position as the first black, female, South Asian vice president, who also happens to be nearly two decades younger than her boss, also changes the demographics she can appeal to.  “Harris’s early polling among white voters, particularly those without a college degree, is poised to make sure that this November’s election remains a close contest, while Rust Belt states Biden had found success in, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, could be harder for her to win,” Naomi wrote.  Those are key states to secure if Harris wants to take up residence in the White House. However, Harris is expected to have far more appeal for the young, female, and minority voters in the Rust Belt states that have been leaning Democratic and only appeared to wobble as questions blared about Biden’s fitness to serve.  There is also excitement about revamped leadership in the Sun Belt. Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada round out the most important states that appear to be up for grabs in November, and new blood means Trump and Republicans will have to divert even more resources to win there.  Biden won every single one of those six states in 2020.  Click here to read more about the Democrats’ newfound confidence.  More money, more problems  Harris used her first campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to tear into Trump, specifically criticizing his reliance on lobbyists and corporations to bankroll his campaign. She said he relies on support from billionaires and big corporations and accused him of “trading access in exchange for campaign contributions.”  The barbs came as she touted her own “people-powered” campaign that received thousands of donors contributing to her $100 million haul in the hours after Biden endorsed her and she announced she was running to replace him.  However, despite her promise the last time she ran for president not to accept donations from Big Money interests, her record isn’t squeaky clean, Investigative Reporter Gabe Kaminsky wrote.  “Harris, through her then-presidential campaign and other committees, accepted donations during the 2020 race from both lobbyists and PACs affiliated with corporations. Now, as Harris assumes control over the tens of millions of dollars in Biden’s war chest following his decision not to run for reelection, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is being boosted once more by corporate-funded PACs and K Street, records show,” Gabe wrote. It’s not easy to stay away from corporate money. All of a politician’s best efforts to keep their pots of cash separate are complicated because “money has so many avenues to flow into elections now,” Craig Holman, an ethics lobbyist for the progressive Public Citizen think tank, told Gabe.  “I wish everybody would take the pledge not to take corporate and lobbyist money. But it’s going to get in elections no matter what,” added Holman, who said the Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 Citizens United v. FEC ruling “opened up the floodgates” for special interests to fuel campaigns. And questions about where she got her cash aren’t limited to what she hauled in last time out. There are also possible legal challenges that could hold up the roughly $90 million she and Biden raised previously that was transferred to her as the new nominee.  Supreme Court Reporter Kaelan Deese wrote this morning for us that an FEC complaint could derail one of the strongest cases Harris had for being the consensus pick to replace Biden.  “One of the top questions over whether Harris can smoothly slide into what was once Biden’s Democratic nomination is whether her campaign can easily inherit the $91.5 million leftover from what was the Biden campaign,” Kaelan wrote. “The uncertainty was underscored on Tuesday when former President Donald Trump’s campaign filed a complaint to the Federal Election Commission against Biden and Harris, accusing them of violating campaign finance laws by sending the president’s funds over to the vice president.”  Republicans might back off their designs on legal challenges to force states to keep Biden on their ballots in favor of cutting Harris’s purse strings.  FEC Chairman Sean Cooksey, a Trump appointee, raised questions about whether the Biden war chest transfer to Harris was above board in a series of posts online.  “If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated …, or reattributed …, as appropriate,” Cooksey posted to X, citing Section 110.1(b)(3) of federal campaign finance regulations. Click here to read more about Harris’s broken promises and the new financial challenges she will have to face. New from us Kamala the extremist Harris VP short list looks like a list of presidential candidates Democratic divisions on Israel on full display ahead of Netanyahu visit Anti-Israel activists who sought to oust Biden and disrupt DNC put pressure on Harris Wray to face questions about FBI inquiry into Trump assassination attempt Blinken praises Kamala Harris’s foreign policy chops GOP Michigan Senate contender backs key Trump trade priority In case you missed it Not all Democrats think Kamala Harris has the nomination locked up Trump is rethinking his venues for rallies Hillary Clinton wants credit for Kamala For your radar Harris will head to Indiana to deliver the keynote speech at Zeta Phi Beta Sorority’s Grand Boulé at 12:45 p.m. before she travels to Houston, Texas.  White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will hold a briefing at 2 p.m.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address Congress at 2 p.m. Biden will give an Oval Office address at 8 p.m. to discuss his decision to withdraw from the 2024 race., , , https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/kamala-harris-campaign-concerns.webp, Washington Examiner, Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-favicon-32×32.png, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feed/, Max Thornberry,