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: 

• 47 days to the election 
• Decision Desk HQ average: Kamala Harris +3.8, as of around noon ET today. Click here to see the latest numbers.
  • PredictIt betting odds: 57 to 46 in favor of Harris.

Common Sense Trump

Donald Trump in his New York rally last night reminded me of 2016 Trump — lucid, on prompter with some genuinely funny riffs and some of the same core issues:

• Calls for “common sense”
• Hitting hard on immigration, though now more focused on deportation rather than building a wall
• Laser-focused on his opponent 
• Cheering on union workers, like the Teamsters who refused to endorse anyone this year
  • Since 1996, the Teamsters have endorsed a Democrat in every presidential election 
  • Watch the Teamsters president explain. 

Famed journalist Mark Halperin a few weeks ago told us the election would be won by whoever could define the other as “extreme.” 

• Thought bubble: By definition, “common sense” isn’t extreme. 

Watch tonight: Halperin is back with his findings from a swing-state focus group on just this issue — and to discuss whether common sense is the answer.

Unserious: While Vice President Kamala Harris presents zero real policies (see below), Trump is using the white space to promise things to the left of Elizabeth Warren, like:  

• No tax on tips
• No tax on overtime
• No tax on Social Security
• Free IVF
• Legalization of marijuana
• SALT restoration
• 10% cap on credit card interest

Reasonable people can agree they are unserious proposals … that said, there’s nothing wrong with starting a conversation, especially when the other side isn’t talking. 

• Watch tonight: Lauren Wright joins to discuss whether the outlandish promises mean anything. 

Alex Thompson and Torey Van Oot deliver in Axios a hard-hitting body blow to the Harris campaign over their strategy to “hide” from the media.

• Their piece reveals a remarkable calculus from the campaign:
  • Her own people view the risk of her screwing up interviews more than the risk of headlines saying she won’t talk.
  • Maybe it’s a good bet — the American people don’t trust big media
    • They trust podcasters and Oprah 
    • Speaking of, Harris and Oprah sit down tonight. 
• The media earned its title of least trusted American institution
  • For so many, being liberal or defeating Donald Trump is more important than their own relevance.
  • In the 2010s, there was often an attempt to “be fair” — that’s gone now. 
  • For example, political violence from the right presents a “threat to democracy.”
    • Over the past three months, someone tried to kill the Republican nominee.
    • And now this: An Alaska man arrested for threatening to kill six members of the Supreme Court.
      • The article doesn’t say which six, but based on the timing and the decision on the day of the threats, a safe bet says the six Republicans. 
    • Where are all the cable TV discussions quoting experts about the actions by the Left that threaten our democracy with political violence 
    • One more point: Remember Russia, Russia, Russia — the huge threat in 2016 of Russian influence on our election?
      • The breathless coverage lasted years into the Trump administration
      • And experts kept telling us Trump went easy on Russia because of it
      • A few facts:
        • President Joe Biden reversed Trump’s maximum pressure campaign on Iran.
        • He gave them access to tens of billions of dollars, which they’ve used to kill Americans and attack Israel.
        • The Iranian government just hacked the Trump campaign to help Biden.
        • Where are the stories about Iranian collusion with the Biden campaign? 
      • I am a journalist — I ask questions. So here it goes: Does political violence and foreign interference only matter when it helps the Left?

Perp-walking Kids?

Sheriff Mike Chitwood of Volusia County, Florida, now perp-walks every kid who makes a threat at school — watch some of the videos here that he personally posts on Twitter. 

• One video here.
• And another here. 
• He notes that they have had 207 threats since school started — now that is crazy! 

He says it’s a warning to kids and parents that they will be publicly exposed.

• Watch tonight: Sheriff Chitwood in his first national TV interview about whether it’s working — and if it’s time to start perp-walking parents too. 

Did Israel Change Warfare?

So far. Hezbollah is licking its wounds — literally — after two days of Israel blowing up pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to the group.

• It’s one of the great intelligence operations in history — books will be written about it. 

And all the American hand-wringing about “escalation” appears misplaced. 

• NSC spokesman John Kirby says, “We don’t believe that the way to solve where we’re at in this crisis is by additional military operations at all. We still believe that the best way to prevent escalation, to prevent another front from opening up in Lebanon is through diplomacy, which is why Mr. Hochstein was over in the region this week, and we’re still going to pursue those kinds of outcomes.”

Iran knows Biden is terrified of escalation and will pay any price (in American lives) not to have war … therefore Iran will keep pushing both the United States and Israel through its proxies until it’s forced to stop.

Israel today flipped the administration two birds and bombed Hezbollah. 

The public embarrassment of Hezbollah and Iran by “Operation Below the Belt” will further cement Israel as the dominant counterweight to Iran.

• Iran has used the past year to continually humiliate and push out the United States from the Middle East. It’s working. The Saudis, Emirates and others are now looking to Israel rather than the United States as the counterweight to Iran. Wow! 
• Prediction: As you have read in War Notes since Oct. 7, Hezbollah and Iran don’t want a war with Israel, and Israel is forcing them to take a pounding. 

Watch tonight: Phil Mudd, former counterterrorism official in the CIA and FBI, will join to discuss how Israel changed warfare and whether China can blow up our iPhones.

• Fun link: There are currently millions of iPhone 16s en route to the United States — you can track them here … are we now stupid not to think China could have bugged them?

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.