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: 

• 89 days to the election 
• 11 days to the DNC
• 33 days to the debate originally set for Sept. 10
• 18 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: Trump +0.2. Click here to see the numbers. 

Mar-a-Lago Woes

Trump’s impromptu grievance fest (a.k.a press conference) only exposes his campaign’s existential crisis — the debates are their last and only hope. 

• Trump thought he could run on “Biden sucks.”
  • It worked too well. 
  • Now he’s in polling free fall, from being up in every swing state to defending North Carolina 
• Our buddy Chris Cillizza is out with a new series of Paths to 270 that give Harris an open highway.

• Click here to watch him talk about the new map. 
• Cook Political Report shows the momentum going in the wrong direction for Trump
  • Voting is in two months …. How does Trump get a win?

• The betting markets turned in Harris’ favor.
• The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board opines, “Will Donald Trump Blow Another Election?”

Thought bubble: Trump’s problem isn’t that he’s behind; it’s that there is nothing he can do to change the conversation. 

• Axios reports he’s at Mar-a-Lago coming up with new nicknames rather than holding rallies.

Debate in coming: Trump appears to be realizing his completely unforced error in backing out of debates…

• Now he says he’s looking forward to them and proposes Sept. 4 (Fox), Sept. 10 (ABC) and Sept. 25 (NBC). 

What I am hearing:

• Republicans now complain that the media went all in for the Harris rewrap (see below) — that’s fair…
• But the media should spend its time covering the policy differences between the two.
  • That’s up to the candidates — if either side talked about policy rather than their grievances and fear-mongering about the other side mixed with platitudes then that would be the news. 

Newsflash: Trump’s whole point by holding a 2 p.m. news conference about nothing is to focus attention on Harris not having a single meaningful interaction with the press in 18 days — that isn’t a win!

• Best line: “She isn’t smart enough to do a news conference.” 
• Wait what? At one point today he started comparing his crowd size during a speech to Martin Luther King’s
• Turd blossom: Karl Rove — aka “the architect” of former President George W. Bush’s political career — writes in the Wall Street Journal, “The past six weeks have shown that the pendulum can swing rapidly and wildly. For the first time this year, the Trump campaign is floundering. Mr. Trump seems rattled. He’s making plenty of unforced errors and wasting valuable, irreplaceable time on insults, side issues and trivia. All this undermines his cause.”

Ego bruise: Live by crowd size, die by crowd size. Barrons reports on the simple optics of Harris’ crowd size and enthusiasm that rival or surpasses Trumps’ crowds. 

Harris Rewrap Complete

In less than three weeks, Harris did everything President Joe Biden couldn’t. 

• She escaped the dismal Biden-Harris legacy on:
  • The border
  • The economy
  • Foreign policy
  • In fact, she doesn’t even say Biden’s name in her stump speech. 
• She united the Democratic party
  • Click here to watch her devastating take down of pro-Hamas protesters last night during a rally.
    • “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”
    • She used the same condescending “I’m speaking” to Mike Pence during the vice presidential debate
      • Look forward:  You can imagine her saying that to Trump. 
    • Flip side: Glen Greenwald takes Harris to task:
      • “Regarding Kamala’s no-nonsense, head-titling, eyebrow-raising scolding of pro-Palestinian protesters — telling them to shut up and fall in line unless they want Trump to come back — here’s what Orwell’s dictatorial pig, Squealer, told unrestful pig-followers in Animal Farm, ‘Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in pour duty? Jones would come back…’” (Follow the link to see the whole excerpt Greenwald shows.)
• Her fundraising numbers continue to impress by playing to her base — the Walz pick only added fuel. The campaign raised $36 million in the 24 hours after the announcement of Walz, and in the month of July alone she raised over $300 million.
• She vanquished “threat to democracy” to the dustbin of political rhetoric and rebranded her campaign as the campaign of “freedom and joy.”
  • As we told you last night, “freedom” and “joy” are like former President Barack Obama’s “hope” — they mean nothing yet can mean everything.  
• She did away with her image as an ineffective leader, ineffective communicator and creator of word salads.
  • Now she sticks to the teleprompter with newfound skill.  
• She neutralizes complaints about avoiding the press by doing off-the-records with her traveling press corp — and thus any complaints about lack of access would mean getting kicked out of the cool kids club. 

Look back: It’s similar to the tactics used by the Biden press shop with the White House press corp. If reporters pushed too hard during the past three years about Biden’s age or other undesirable topics, they got iced out. 

The rewrap of Harris is complete and fully embraced by a media who hates Donald Trump. 

• Ingrid Jauques writes in USA Today, “Kamala Harris seems ‘unburdened’ by her lackluster past. She can thank the media for that.”

• To be fair: As Chris Hahn and I agreed last night, why would she do any interviews?
• Look back: Her last interview, her June 27 emergency appearance, was with Anderson Cooper to declare “Joe Biden is extraordinarily strong” after his debate performance. 

Programming alert: Steve Krakauer joins us tonight to discuss his must-read column in The Hill, “VPs and vibes: Walz vs. Vance in an election where reality doesn’t matter.”

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.