Leland Vittert’s War Notes: Looking For News In All the Wrong Places

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.

Day 3 in Milwaukee: Things with Donald Trump are never boring, but the RNC is getting, well, boring. There is not much to report.

The party loves Trump — Nikki Haley endorsed him last night.
Trump’s people, like Lara Trump and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, are humanizing him in their speeches.
His VP pick, JD Vance, represents a distilled version of MAGA.
They aren’t fighting about abortion.
They aren’t talking about jailing Hunter Biden.
They aren’t talking about freeing the Jan. 6 “hostages” or the 2020 election.
They are talking mostly about crime, inflation and the border, plus some national security… all issues voters say they care about.
Easy headline after the shooting: Republicans lower the temperatures and unify (aka, they are being smart).
- Republicans are being smart. It’s boring, but rare. And further underscores the newfound discipline of Team Trump.
- Subtle message: The Democrats just don’t have their 💩 together.

Contrast this with the Democrats, where there is NO unity, and the only message they agree on is that Trump (who just got shot) sucks.

NOT BORING: The drama is among the Democrats

The Obama team (most vocally the “Pod Save America” boys) keeps pushing Biden out and calling out Biden’s advisers for staying in.
Big money now pours into polling, which is then leaked to reporters, showing Biden’s vulnerabilities
The DNC will ram through an early virtual nomination of Biden before the convention and now faces an internal revolt.
Two-thirds of Democrats want Biden to withdraw from the race.

Mediaite reports, “One Hour Before Trump Shooting Biden Held a Disastrous Zoom Call That Rattled Moderate Democrats.”

And according to the Washington Post, Biden allies worry he is not getting complete information about the race.

The top of Mike Allen’s Axios AM newsletter, Drudge Report and Politico’s Playbook are about the Democrats

From Axios, “Since his disastrous debate last month, President Biden has embraced a laundry list of left-wing policy proposals, strong-armed the party’s nomination process and still tried to limit spontaneous, unscripted moments.”
From Politico, “WHAT DEMOCRATS ARE READING —This polling memo (h/t JMart) from BlueLabs Analytics is circulating among party officials still keen to convince JOE BIDEN to step aside and prevent his party from suffering what many fear will be a historic loss to DONALD TRUMP.”
- Alarm bells: “Nearly every tested Democrat performs better than the President.”

The Democrats are so screwed up that during the Republican convention, we are talking about how screwed up the Democrats are.

Thought bubble: For all the media hand-wringing about the Republican Party no longer being the party of Ronald Reagan and abandoning traditional conservative values, Biden and Team Blue’s tack to the left shows they have zero interest in building a coalition with those voters.

Perspective: Bill O’Reilly returns to “The Daily Show.” If it weren’t for Jan. 6, O’Reilly predicts Trump would be ahead by 25 points.

Click here to watch the conversation.

Life lesson: Things change, and they can change back before November, but right now, the real “news” is about Democrats and Joe Biden — and that is awful news for Democrats and Joe Biden.

Look forward: Don Jr. told Mike Allen that the only way his father loses is if Democrats “cheat.” Tonight, Trump sycophant Peter Navarro will come from jail on contempt of Congress charges over Jan. 6 to speak at the RNC.

In a few words: Dear God.

Former President Donald Trump, left, and Senator JD Vance, a Republican from Ohio and Republican vice-presidential nominee, during the Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, on Tuesday, July 16, 2024. (Photographer: Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Vance’s Big Night

Will the real JD Vance still stand up? Rarely in American politics does someone have a chance to truly make a first impression … in my lifetime, we’ve had three:

Barack Obama, 2004
Sarah Palin, 2008
JD Vance, 2024

Trump’s former campaign manager, confidant and current convention adviser Corey Lewandowski told us last night that of all the VP candidates they polled and tested, JD Vance had the lowest name recognition of all the possible Trump picks.

What even informed Americans know about Vance:

Poor kid
Mom was a drug addict
Marine
Went to Yale Law School
Wrote “Hillbilly Elegy.”
“Never Trumper” turned Trump’s VP pick.

For most of America who doesn’t spend their life glued to cable news, tonight is his chance to say hello.

Our reporting indicates a speech much more about biography than policy and politics

The Republican base knows and loves him — he doesn’t have anything to prove to them
“Hillbilly Elegy” was a bestseller and then turned into a Netflix film — Americans love an American story

Watch tonight for coverage of his big night.

U.S. Secret Service agents remove Republican presidential candidate former president Donald Trump from the stage with blood on his face during a campaign rally at Butler Farm Show Inc. in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, July 13, 2024. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

COVER-UP?

Republican anger continues to grow over the lack of answers, accountability and information about Saturday’s assassination attempt.

Look forward: The longer it takes for the Secret Service to answer basic questions, including the “shoot” or “don’t shoot” decision (and radio traffic) by their countersniper team, the more time given for conspiracy theories to grow.

Everything we don’t know:

Anything about the shooter’s motive
Whether the countersniper team spotted the suspect with his rifle before he fired.
Why a man with a rangefinder was allowed through security to begin with
Why the local officer who confronted the shooter on the roof didn’t notify the Secret Service command post
What broke down in communication between local support police departments and the Secret Service for covering the building
How many shots the shooter get off before being engaged
I could keep going

Must do better: In an interview with ABC, the embattled Secret Service director said the organization didn’t post an agent or look out on the building because of a sloped roof — it’s a laughably silly explanation.

We don’t know when Corey Comperatore will be buried, but sources tell NewsNation’s Libbey Dean that Trump won’t go to the funeral — although he did call the volunteer firefighter’s widow.

Locals are pissed that they are being played

Brian Entin will join us tonight to report on all of this and new information he’s uncovered from the locals, including them telling the Secret Service they didn’t have the manpower to cover the building.

The New York Post reports the Butler County sheriff defended his officers, saying, “If I’m interrupted and I move my gun, you are going to have to reassess that whole situation at this point, so yes, you can make a case that those two officers saved the president’s life.”

When you can choose to explain crazy events with incompetence rather than conspiracy, always choose incompetence.

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.