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

State of play: 

• 81 days to the election 
• 3 days to the DNC
• 25 days to the debate set for Sept. 10
• 26 days since Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the candidacy, and she still hasn’t had a meaningful interaction with the press 
• Decision Desk HQ average: Harris +1.8, as of around 12 p.m. ET today. Click here to see the latest numbers

Must read: Sometime this weekend, do yourself a favor and read former Clinton confidant Doug Sosnik’s pre-DNC memo. 

Must listen: The Politico deep dive podcast with him, which is the single best breakdown of the race so far. 

Programming alert: Watch tonight for the most important story nobody is telling you about: the beating of a Black police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. 

“Comrade Kamala”

Twenty-six days of Harris’ perfect rollout with no interviews, no word salads and not a single word off the teleprompter ended today with her first big policy speech on “price controls.” 

• Is she really proposing bureaucrats in D.C. set the prices of eggs in Dayton, gas in Las Vegas or apples in Raleigh? No, at least not yet.
  • But it doesn’t matter 

Harris opened the door for Team Trump to define her: The press release reads, “Comrade Kamala goes full communist.”

• Look back: Like “Crooked Hillary,” it plays into the public’s preconceived notion of an ultraliberal from California who in 2019 wanted to:
  • Confiscate guns
  • Ban private health insurance
  • Ban fracking 
  • And more

Economic reality: 

• As Catherine Rampell pointed out in a Washington Post opinion and said on CNN,
  • “It’s hard to exaggerate how bad Kamala Harris’ price-gouging proposal is.”
  • On CNN, she said, “We‘ve seen this kind of thing tried in lots of other countries before. Venezuela, Argentina, the Soviet Union … it leads to shortages.” She also noted it could “cause a lot of harm.” 

To be fair: It sounds good that Harris is going to take on evil big business and their “excessive prices” and “excessive corporate profits.”

• Fair question: Why didn’t she talk about price controls in 2019? Was it not a problem then? Were corporations not greedy under Trump?
  • What’s excessive? Well, we would love to ask her, but she’s not doing interviews.
  • Economic reality: Right now, the grocery industry’s gross profits hover around 1 to 2%. Would .5% be less excessive? 
  • Reality: She opened herself up to attacks while promising to solve a problem (price gouging) that largely does not exist
    • That laws exist already to solve the problem
    • Even if done perfectly, her proposal will do nothing to help consumers afford groceries 

Farm truth: Price controls don’t work.

• To cap the price of eggs in Dayton, Ohio:
  • You must cap the price of fertilizer to grow the grain to feed the chickens to lay the eggs.
  • You must cap the price of fuel to transport the fertilizer, the grain and the eggs.
  • You must cap the price of wages for the truck drivers, grain farmers, egg farmers and supermarket workers.
    • Bonus watching: “Harvest,” NewsNation’s documentary on the challenges farmers face simply making a living.

Political reality: If “Comrade Kamala” loses the election, we will look back at today as the turning point. 

Watch tonight: Corey Lewandoski, who ran Trump’s 2016 campaign, helped in 2020 and just joined his old boss.

• Lewandowski will tell us what parts of 2016 they are trying to recapture and, more importantly, what parts of 2020 they will hope to avoid — aside from losing. 
• Biden didn’t follow the (unofficial) rules during the RNC and campaigned — will Trump do the same during the DNC?
• How will Trump end the unforced errors like saying the Presidential Medal of Freedom he gave last night to a billionaire donor is, “actually, much better because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead.”
  • Wait, what? Yes, he said that. 
  • Thought bubble: Trump’s outrageous comments of his 2016 election campaign …
    • Saying of John McCain: “He was a war hero because he was captured…I like people who weren’t captured.”
    • Saying “rapists” were crossing the border. 
    • Calling for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
  • …all made political points — though not sure what points comparing a donor to fallen soldiers gets you. 

The New Kamala Harris

Today’s economic speech defines the themes for the DNC and the Harris-Walz campaign 

• A shift to populist vs. progressive policies — who knows if that holds after the election
• A shift away from the language of DEI — while still giving a wink to that crowd
  • Her online application for campaign job positions reportedly offers nine different pronoun options

• A divorce from the defense of the “successes” of Bidenomics 
• A focus on “the future” 
• An acknowledgment that “saving America from Trump” isn’t enough for 2024, although it was in 2020. 

Sosnik’s memo shows Harris’ multiple new paths to victory.

Bidding war: Today, Harris offered a $6,000 tax credit for newborns — because JD Vance’s proposal of $5,000 wasn’t enough. 

• More free stuff:
  • $25,000 bonuses to buy a house, which, as Trish Regan pointed out last night, will increase the cost of houses by $25,000
  • What’s next? No taxes on beer or White Claws to earn the fraternity and sorority vote at the University of Georgia? 

Bottom line: Neither candidate is even moderately interested in doing the hard work to economically fix the United States. 

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

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