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.  

Editor’s note: Enjoy the brevity of today’s note — this week we are working on a few projects requiring a little extra time. It will be worth it…trust us. 

Remember: War Notes are our thoughts on the most important stories of the day. It doesn’t substitute for watching the show at 7 p.m. ET! 

State of play: 

• 90 days to the election 
• 12 days to the DNC
• 34 days to the debate originally set for Sept. 10
• 17 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: Kamala Harris +0.2 (and rising). Click here to see the numbers
  • Notice that this is the first time former President Trump has been behind in the polls since Oct. 15, 2023.

Events today and tomorrow: 

• Vice President Harris: Today, she and Walz will campaign in Detroit, Michigan, and Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Tomorrow, she and Walz were supposed to head to Raleigh, North Carolina, but their rally was postponed due to weather. Now, they will hold another  campaign event in Michigan instead. 
• President Biden: Nothing today
• Trump: Nothing today or tomorrow. Friday, he will rally in Montana. 
• JD Vance: Vance will follow Harris and Walz to Michigan and Wisconsin for media appearances. 
• Gov. Tim Walz: Today, he will join Harris in Michigan and Wisconsin. 

Must-watch moment: JD Vance coming up to Harris’ plane and saying hi to reporters and highlight Walz and Harris’ avoidance of the media while they carry her rallies wall to wall. 

• Click here to watch the video.
• On X he writes, “I thought the reporters traveling with Kamala might be a little lonely given that she never answers questions from them, so I figured I’d come say hello and check out my new plane while I was at it.”

Programing alert: Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee joins us tonight to talk about why it’s only JD Vance (and not Trump) on the trail this week and whether Trump is running out of time to reverse his polling slide. 

Freedom and Joy

Last night and today on the stump, Harris and Walz laid out their vision for America – “Freedom” and “Joy”.

• What that means, nobody is sure. But that’s the point. 

Avoiding policy: 

• Last night, Harris outlined the “freedoms” she and Walz value. Her campaign website adds nothing to this in the form of policy to protect those freedoms, but we have an idea of what she and Walz might do.
  • The “freedom to vote”: Walz believes voter ID laws are a “solution looking for a problem.”
    • If elected, Harris and Walz might give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses nationwide — Walz did that in his own state. 
  • The “freedom to be safe from gun violence”: Harris has said that she is interested in banning assault weapons to solve this problem, rather than locking up criminals who use guns. 
  • The “freedom to love who you love openly and with pride”: Walz was the faculty adviser for the LGBTQ+ club at the school he taught at. The AP also reported  Walz protected “gender-affirming care” for minors in Minnesota. 
  • The “freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body”: Is this referring to abortion at any time? Birth control? Axios reports Walz signed a bill in Minnesota to protect people who left states with abortion bans to get abortions in Minnesota (and the same thing for people receiving transgender healthcare). 

Very little is known about what Harris believes on issues, but calling Trump a threat to democracy wasn’t working — maybe this will.

“Freedom” and “joy” intentionally can mean anything to anyone — much like 2008 when former President Barack Obama ran on “hope.”

• Fair question: Freedom to some might mean the freedom to walk your dog during COVID-19. Walz set up a COVID-19 snitch line — listen to the audio here. 

Missing: Not only was Biden not at the rally, he and any mention of Harris’ “accomplishments” never come up during Harris’s stump speech 

• Remember when: Just a month ago, Harris and Democrats said over and over their problems were not talking about the accomplishments enough.
• Thought bubble: How long can they keep Biden out? 

Watch tonight: Chris Cillizza joins us to discuss why “freedom” and “joy” might equal “hope” and thus, victory.

Can Republicans Swift Boat Walz?

Much of the Tim Walz story revolves around his time in the National Guard, which is true. But as CNN points out, Walz often tells stories that make it seem like he went to war, which he did not. 

• For example this clip of Walz:”We can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons are at.”
  • Oops! Kamala HQ put out the clip — this is why you take months to vet someone! 

Yikes! By all accounts, he retired from the National Guard shortly after his unit got call up orders for Iraq.  

Be fair: Tim Walz is a veteran but it appears as the senior enlisted soldier in his unit, he bailed on his men 

Walz dodged stolen valor questions on the tarmac today, but it’s an attack that’s worked before — just ask John Kerry.

Counterpunch: JD Vance, who served in Iraq as a Marine, came back hard, saying,“If he wants to criticize me for getting an Ivy League education, I’m proud of the fact that my Mawmaw supported me, that I was able to make something of myself. I’d be ashamed if I was him and I lied about my military service like he did.”

• Jim Acosta gets the award for least-enthusiastic fact check ever when a sitting senator didn’t know JD Vance served in the Marines.
  • Thought bubble: How bad are her staff and prep work?

Good Riddance Cori Bush

Last night, Hamas-enthusiast Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., lost her primary race to another Black progressive whose biggest difference is that he supports Israel. 

In honor of her defeat, we invite you to click here and watch a clip from my 2018 interview with Bush in which she appears not to understand how the tax code works. 

Not to be outdone by her bizarre statements of the past, Bush now promises revenge. 

• “All they did was radicalize me, so now they should be afraid,” she said, promising to “tear down (AIPAC’s) kingdom.” 

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.