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.
Since nobody is writing about former President Donald Trump today, we won’t either, but at least our headline is different — and since he is the unquestioned front-runner, let’s look at how this weekend’s events ended the best 3 1/2 weeks of his political life.
- Disclosure: This is the only newsletter you get today that will start with admitting what we don’t know…
Programming alert: Bill O’Reilly joins us tonight to take a well-deserved victory lap on calling a year ago that Joe Biden wouldn’t be the nominee.
Pat on the back: We said basically the same thing. On Sept. 19, 2023, we said, “The real drama in the 2024 presidential race is going to be among Democrats. Almost daily now — it looks less likely that President Biden will be the Democratic nominee.”
Most important question: Did all those people (about 70%) who said “anybody but Trump and Biden” actually mean it? If so, Trump is toast.
For all the spin and experts talking over the past day, here’s what we don’t know:
- If anything didn’t really change in the past 24 hours on the core issues, nor will it in the next 106 days:
- Grocery prices
- Out-of-control crime
- The border
- She has served as the border czar
- Foreign policy issues will get worse, not better, as the world’s bad boys have fun
- Harris now inherits all of the ill wills of swing voters from the Biden-Harris administration
- Click here for a reality check from MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki.
- Whether voters will like Harris less the more they see and hear her
- Whether Black women will suddenly turn out in droves
- How will this play out in mixed-race households?
- The Obama-esque parallels are hard to miss.
- Black men didn’t like Kamala Harris in 2020 — will that have changed?
- Nobody liked her in 2020 — that’s why she flamed out well before Iowa, but the tape exists
- Will Kamala’s past positions come back to bite her?
- “Searching for the Real Kamala Harris,” writes Lee Fang, who continues, “The vice president has run as tough-on-crime and as a criminal justice reformer, as business-friendly and a populist, stressing differing parts of her racial identity.”
- See the links below to watch some of her greatest hits from the 2020 debates…
- No cops … “What we will do is reimagine public safety.”
- Get rid of the filibuster.
- Pronoun police
- Illegal immigrants aren’t criminals
- See the links below to watch some of her greatest hits from the 2020 debates…
- Whether the Black woman card will protect her from attacks
- Whether the embarrassed White House press corps will hold her accountable for covering up Biden’s mental decline
- If the White House press corps and most corporate media hate Trump so much, will they just roll over and spend the next 100 days fawning over Harris?
- Be fair: Even Lester Holt felt the need to set her straight on not going to the border … real interviews will be a problem for Harris.
- Whether she’s too progressive on energy (with hopes to ban fracking, sign a Green New Deal, etc.). After all, Trump’s biggest spontaneous applause line at RNC was when he said he would end the EV mandate.
- Who knows, maybe she can “sell” the Biden “successes” on the economy — we are constantly told the Dems just need better messaging
- Maybe “women’s reproductive rights” will turn out in droves for the first woman president — “the future is female.”
- Maybe the poll numbers won’t move. Who was against Biden and for Trump who is now on Team Harris?
Rumsfeld speaks: The list of even “known unknowns” could fill pages. We should also be respectful of the unknown (or at least unanticipated) unknowns, like last week’s assassination attempt.
- Read Politico’s 15 different expert opinions, all coming to different conclusions.
Zoom out: Trump caught the car — Biden is out. AND Harris caught the car — now she has to run on Biden’s record.
- But Harris is a tough former prosecutor, and Trump is a felon
- Yes, and every time Trump got indicted (and convicted), he raised more money and did better in the polls.
- Fact check: As of yesterday, Donald Trump was in the best polling position of his political career.
Watch your back: Yes, Kamala Harris appears to be the nominee, but the Democratic Party cabal already evicted the sitting president and presumptive (Biden has the delegates) nominee of their party because polls showed he couldn’t win.
- Harris’ problem: She’s spent the past few years only in safe spaces. Much like a new ship before the shakedown cruise, she didn’t go through the primary process this year. When she did in 2020, it was a disaster.
- Pro tip: Nothing about being vice president and kept protected from all but the most fawning and loving media and voters makes you better.
- Look forward: If in two weeks before the DNC polling shows Harris doing worse, why wouldn’t Democrats replace her just like they did Biden?
- Look back: Democrats crowned Hillary Clinton as the nominee because it was “her turn,” not because she was the best candidate — it didn’t work out well.
Trump spent the past 3 1/2 weeks happily out of the headlines while Biden’s fellow Democrats did the dirty work of mortally wounding Biden:
- Team Trump hoped a wounded Biden would stay on. Hence, all the talk from Republicans about the party of democracy perpetrating a coup on its own leader.
- To be fair: Has anyone seen Biden? For people so committed to democracy, transparency and credibility, the 2 p.m. Sunday letter on X from a candidate holed up at his beach house feels a little Stalinesque.
- Current calls from Republicans (including from Speaker of the House Mike Johnson) for Biden to resign are perplexing. Do they actually want to run against the first female president, Kamala Harris?!?!
MSNBC had a casting call for VP over the last day.
- Look at Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly.
- But can she pick a Jew (Shapiro) with the antisemitism in the Democratic Party?
- Thought bubble: The fact that we have to ask that question says a LOT about the state of the Democratic Party.
- If she doesn’t pick a Jew, will her borderline pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel views since Oct. 7 sink her?
- Watch for her meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday.
- Thought bubble: Team Biden is setting her up as a co-president for the next few months.
- Watch for her meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday.
- But can she pick a Jew (Shapiro) with the antisemitism in the Democratic Party?
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.