Travis Gettys

Vice President Kamala Harris should remind debate watchers of Donald Trump's greatest failure as president – and one of the major reasons he was not re-elected for a second term.

Democrats have effectively adopted vice presidential candidate Tim Walz's framing around Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance as "weird," and Bloomberg columnist Nia-Malika Henderson urged Harris to use her running mate's summation of the former president's response to the Covid pandemic that killed more than 400,000 Americans on his watch.

“He froze in the face of Covid, and our neighbors died because of it,” Walz said last month during a campaign appearance in Michigan, "and by doing nothing about Covid, he drove this economy into the ground.”

Reminding voters of that historic failure comes with risks, Henderson concedes, because many Americans prefer not to dwell on bad memories associated with the pandemic, and many still accuse Democrats of overreacting with safety measures in those early days.

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"But 'getting over' Covid won’t be easy, given that it remains one of the top 10 leading causes of death, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," Henderson wrote. "Trump’s approach to the pandemic doesn’t bode well for what he would do in a second term. While he pushed for a Covid vaccine as part of Operation Warp Speed, he sowed confusion about the vaccine’s effectiveness, spread conspiracy theories and consistently downplayed the seriousness of the virus."

Trump's misinformation proved especially deadly for his own supporters, with research showing pro-Trump counties had much higher death rates than those that backed president Joe Biden in 2020, and the nation never fully recovered from his early mishandling of the pandemic.

"He called it a hoax," Henderson wrote. "He said it would disappear. He said fewer tests would mean fewer cases. He called Dr. Anthony Fauci an idiot and praised quacks who were pushing unproven treatments for Covid. He dithered and delayed and people died as a result. Rather than having a national strategy, Trump deemed the federal government a mere 'backup' option for the states as they scrambled for ventilators, personal protective equipment and a system for testing and contact-tracing."

The former president claims credit for rescuing the economy and tens of millions of jobs, but Henderson said Harris must correct the record and remind voters that the pandemic was still raging the last time they voted for president in 2020 – when Trump was still in the White House.

"In her 2020 debate against Vice President Mike Pence, Harris’ first question was about Covid," Henderson wrote. "She said that Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic was the 'greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.' With thousands dying daily and Trump recommending bleach and ultraviolet light as a cure, the 2020 presidential election was a referendum on Covid and Trump’s competence."

"He treated the pandemic like it was a branding challenge, not a medical and economic catastrophe," Henderson added. "Democrats must remind voters of this, raising the specter of Trump at the helm again, spinning lies and doing nothing as another disaster unfolds."

Donald Trump's campaign is bracing for another round of backlash involving J.D. Vance's extreme takes.

The Republican vice presidential candidate has repeatedly been dogged by his own remarks deemed to be misogynist, off-putting behavior and association with right-wing extremists – most infamously his slandering of Kamala Harris and other Democrats as "childless cat ladies" in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson – and the Trump campaign sees a fresh predicament on the horizon, reported The Bulwark's Marc Caputo.

"More controversy is likely on the way," Caputo wrote. "Vance pre-recorded an interview with Tucker Carlson on Thursday just hours after the White House criticized the right-wing populist for featuring a historian who suggested, a few days before, that the Holocaust happened by accident. Later this fall, CNN reported, Vance is scheduled to appear as a guest of Carlson’s during a live speaking tour."

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“'Not ideal timing. But it is what it is,' a Trump campaign official said."

Trump world views the 40-year-old Ohio senator as a welcome dose of clarity in contrast to the 78-year-old former president, who's been increasingly raising concerns about his age and fitness with often incoherent rants on the campaign trail, but Democrats see Vance as an anchor with a net favorability of negative12.

"David Paleologos, the Suffolk University pollster who conducted [a recent] survey, said Vance’s poor poll numbers are probably the result of a combination of factors: his controversial statements, the downstream effect of Trump’s ratings (the ex president had a net positive rating of -14 percent) and his lack of a traditional running-mate rollout," Caputo said. "Trump announced Vance as his running mate on the first day of the Republican National Convention, giving him less of a 'springboard' to introduce himself to the public. In contrast, Harris announced [Tim] Walz as her pick a week before the Democrats’ convention."

But much of Vance's unpopularity falls on his own shoulders, said former Barack Obama campaign manager David Axelrod, who said the first-term senator had traded in whatever public goodwill he once enjoyed to become “the ambassador from the Trump campaign to mainstream media and alternative media."

"Seven years ago, when Vance first stepped on the scene as an anti-Trump Republican and author of the best-selling book Hillbilly Elegy, Axelrod said he was impressed with Vance’s thoughtfulness and encouraged him to run for office," Caputo reported. "'Then he made this lurch to the right,' Axelrod added. 'He speaks fluent mainstream media, but it’s not his chosen language anymore. He prefers to speak MAGA, and he knows the hot buttons to push. It’s gotten him this far, and from Trump’s standpoint, that’s the language he wants him to speak.'"

Donald Trump's lawyers raised a federal judge's eyebrows by seemingly suggesting that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was advising their defense.

Trump attorney John Lauro argued in a hearing Thursday before district judge Tanya Chutkan that a ruling by another federal judge that challenged the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith should apply in the District of Columbia election interference case, saying the opinion by Florida-based judge Aileen Cannon should serve as binding precedent.

Chutkan asked why the defense didn't challenge the special counsel's authority last year, and Lauro said a concurring opinion penned by Thomas in the D.C. immunity ruling raised the issue of Smith's authority, which Cannon then used to justify her dismissal of Trump's charges in the classified documents case.

Lauro then told the court that Thomas directed them to raise this issue, according to CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane, who said the statement seemed to catch Chutkan by surprise.

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"He directed you to do it?" Chutkan asked.

Trump's attorney backtracked, saying, "Well, he didn't direct us to," according to MacFarlane.

MSNBC's Katie Phang said the judge told Trump's attorneys the deadline to file a motion challenging Smith's appointment has passed, adding that she didn't find Cannon's opinion to be "persuasive," but Lauro argued that Thomas had given them the green light to file the challenge anyway.

"When you read Justice Thomas’ concurrence he’s telling us to file this motion," Lauro said, according to Phang.

The mother of the 14-year-old suspect in a Georgia high school shooting has a lengthy criminal record dating back over two decades in four counties.

Marcee Gray has faced prosecution on allegations of domestic violence, drug possession, property damage and traffic violations in Barrow, Fulton and Forsyth counties, and also faced civil fraud charges related to a vehicle purchase, reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Her son, 14-year-old Colt Gray, is expected to be charged as an adult with murder in the deaths of two 14-year-old classmates and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Winder.

The 43-year-old mother of three was arrested on Nov. 6 in Barrow County on suspected possession of methamphetamine, fentanyl and muscle relaxants, and investigators say she also concealed the identity of her vehicle with a tag belonging to another vehicle.

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Court records show she wasn't actually charged with drug possession but pleaded guilty in December to a single count of using a using a license plate to conceal identity, criminal damage to property in the second degree and criminal trespass/family violence.

Gray was sentenced Dec. 21 to five years in jail, with the first 46 days in custody and the remainder on probation, and she was credited for the time she spent in jail since her arrest the month before.

She was ordered to pay more than $1,500 in restitution to an Atlanta construction company and prohibited from having contact with her husband Colin Gray except through a third party on matters related to their children or divorce.

An order related to that restitution shows Gray was at the Ben Hill County Jail on April 5, and another order in the Barrow County case shows she may be subject to prosecution in another county but does not provide additional details.

A newspaper report from January shows she faced charges of aggravated battery, theft by taking, criminal trespass, false imprisonment and failure to appear in court.

Court records show Gray had been previously prosecuted in 2019 on misdemeanor traffic charges in Forsyth County and faced a speeding charge in Barrow County in 2014, she had been charged in 2008 in Fulton County for traffic offenses, including driving under the influence, from a year before.

An auto dealer sued her five years ago for allegedly using a $10,000 check as a down payment in September 2018 to purchase a new Chevrolet Suburban, but there wasn't enough money in her and her husband's account to cover the payment.

Records show that a bank in Gwinnett County had an ongoing garnishment claim on Colin Gray's paychecks for about a year.

A classmate who was sitting beside Colt Gray just before he left his Algebra I class, retrieved a rifle and opened fire in another classroom said she wasn't surprised he was the shooter.

“He never really talked. He was pretty quiet,” said classmate Lyela Sayarath. “He wasn’t there most times either. He just didn’t come to school or he just would skip class, but even when he would’ve talked, it was one-word answers and short statements.”

Donald Trump's insistence on attaching a voter identification law onto a House funding bill is putting speaker Mike Johnson – and the Republican Party's election chances – into a risky position.

The Louisiana Republican finds himself under pressure from the GOP's right-wing flank and the former president to risk a government shutdown weeks before the election to get the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act signed into law, which would require individuals registering to vote to present documentary proof of citizenship that would not actually solve the supposed problem, wrote MSNBC's Hayes Brown.

"While Republicans have tried to frame the bill as a necessary safeguard to prevent noncitizens from voting in federal elections, that’s absolutely not the case," Brown wrote. "Despite what Johnson has claimed, Democrats are not opposing the SAVE Act because 'they want [undocumented immigrants] to vote in our elections.' Nor is there a mass voter fraud network, as Trump and his allies have insinuated. It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. It is, likewise, illegal to lie on the forms that states ... use requiring people registering to vote to affirm their U.S. citizenship.

Funding for the federal government ends Sept. 30, meaning all nonessential services shut down the next day, and Trump and his “chaos caucus” allies are insisting that Democrats accept the voter ID requirements along with the draconian spending cuts they always demand – and never get – as part of a stopgap funding measure.

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"As the highest-ranking elected Republican, and someone who won’t be speaker next year if Republicans don’t hold onto the House, Johnson should know how much of an utter disaster it would be to have the GOP be blamed for a government shutdown as the November election looms," Brown wrote. "But Trump says that’s what Republicans should do if they don’t get their way. 'I would shut down the government in a heartbeat if they don’t get it,' he said on the 'Monica Crowley Show' last week. 'It should be in the bill. And if it’s not in the bill, you want to close it up.'"

Johnson told his caucus that he'll bring a spending bill to the floor that would push the fiscal deadline back to March and attach the SAVE Act, which Brown called a "no-win scenario" that could be a "looming disaster" for GOP election chances.

"The best case for Johnson is that his united caucus votes for the combined package and passes it over Democratic objection ... [but] it would be likely then that the Senate, controlled by Democrats, would simply pass a clean CR with that date altered and send it to the House, putting the onus on Johnson to get the votes to see that it is approved," Brown wrote.

"At worst, Johnson refuses to bring a Senate bill to the floor without the SAVE Act attached as Trump would prefer, bringing the gears of government grinding to a halt while his members are out trying to convince voters to send them back to Washington," Brown added.

It's not clear Johnson has the GOP votes to extend the deadline, and being unable to pass even that basic legislation could hurt Republicans in November, but Brown said that's the spot Trump and his allies have left the speaker.

"This apparently is the only way forward for Johnson, hemmed in as he is by the delusions of Trump and his acolytes," Brown wrote. "The question is whether in doing so the fallout is confined to the halls of the Capitol or makes the Republicans’ failures impossible to ignore as people around the country suffer."

Some hardline conservatives are starting to doubt Donald Trump's assurances that he'd make abortion restrictions a priority in a second presidency.

One leading activist said her phone was "blowing up" last week with angry calls and texts from other Students for Life members who were threatening to sit out canvassing efforts after Trump criticized Florida's six-week abortion ban, but that group's leader told Politico that the GOP nominee needed to reassure anti-abortion activists by identifying judges he planned to nominate or fellow advocates he would place in top jobs.

“It would be nice to be able to say that President Trump is with us, that he has promised to appoint pro-life experts who will abide by the Constitution,” said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life Action. “We want to be able to go back to our base and be able to show them that President Trump, despite what they’ve heard in the media, despite some of his confusing or cutesy tweets, is still going to be a plus in the column for the pro-life movement.”

Trump publicly rejected Florida's Amendment 4 ballot initiative that would protect abortion rights after a lobbying blitz from anti-abortion leaders who were concerned about his comments on the state's ban, which he said was too short at six weeks, but they remain upset about his off-the-cuff pledge to guarantee free IVF services, his promise to support “reproductive rights" and his refusal to use the Comstock Act to stop mail delivery of abortion medication as he campaigns for re-election.

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“Ever since it became clear that Trump was going to sew up the nomination, you would hear from conservatives: ‘Look, he’s got to say what he’s got to say to get elected, but once he’s in office, and we have a staunch pro-lifer as the head of HHS using the deep state for conservative ends, then it’ll be all worth it,’” said Patrick Brown, a fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center. “But all these people are not from the traditional, conservative base of the party, and maybe that’s the right political strategy, but on substance, it is totally concerning.”

Abortion foes were relieved by Trump's choice of J.D. Vance as running mate, but they're concerned about his recent appointments of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard to a transition team chaired by Linda McMahon, because all three have a history of supporting abortion rights.

“The challenge for the Trump team is this comes on the heels of him walking away from pro-life positions,” said Marc Short, former White House legislative affairs director and Mike Pence’s chief of staff. “In combination, there is more than just smoke, it seems to be a real fire.”

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough highlighted evidence that showed Donald Trump's economic policies would raise costs for many Americans – especially those who live in the states most likely to vote for him.

Kamala Harris has proposed raising taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans, but Scarborough said the Republican nominee wanted to impose tariffs that would raise the cost of consumer goods and then cut taxes for the rich, as he did in his first term as president.

"One economist after another has come out and said that," Scarborough said, and then introduced economic analyst Steve Rattner. "Steve, you're looking at how Donald Trump's policies would do more harm to the states that support him the most. Before we get there, I do want to talk about taxes. Let's be very clear here: So Donald Trump and Kamala Harris both want to raise taxes, Kamala Harris is talking about actually raising taxes on corporations and the wealthiest of Americans. She's talking about, though, giving a big tax cut, big tax credit to small business owners that will benefit entrepreneurs. Donald Trump, as the Wall Street Journal editorial page said months ago, Donald Trump has proposed the biggest tax increases in this election through the form of tariffs."

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"Who do tariffs hurt?" Scarborough added. "They hurt consumers, they hurt middle-class America – they don't hurt the rich, they hurt consumers. They hurt middle-class Americans who can't afford the Trump tariff tax that they're going to get hit with."

Rattner agreed, saying the data he had analyzed showed Trump's economic proposals would hit Americans in red states the hardest.

"The Trump tariffs are, as you say, actually a huge tax increase," Rattner said. "It'd cost the average American family something like $1,600 a year. Even worse than that, it would affect the people at the bottom in terms of the percentage income they would lose more than the people at the top. It's what we call regressive, favoring the rich over the poor, as well as ... raising inflation and having a negative impact on the economy."

"I think there were two things about Harris' announcement yesterday that are worth pointing out," Rattner added. "The first, unlike Trump, who seems to make policy on the fly wherever he is – IVF, we're going to pay for it, maybe not, whatever – she's starting to have detailed plans on housing, taxes, small business and so forth. She's running a campaign with policy, unlike the former president and except for these off-the-cuff kind of things. Secondly, her proposal would increase taxes on the wealthy, unlike Trump's, which would decrease taxes on the wealthy. Try to get people to pay their fair share, try to take a stab at addressing our deficit, which you and I talked a lot about. Trump has no plan for that. What you saw yesterday for Harris is the beginning of a plan for that."

Watch the video below or at this link.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough called out the right-wing influencers who spent years downplaying Donald Trump's ties to Russia and then took cash from what turned out to be a Kremlin front operation.

The Justice Department charged two employees of the Russian state-run RT network in a scheme to secretly fund and direct social media videos that garnered millions of views – including posts by well-known influencers Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, David Rubin, and Lauren Southern – offering conservative viewpoints on transgender rights, "migrant gangs," online censorship and presidential politics, and the indictment states they often amplified Kremlin propaganda aimed to inflame domestic divisions.

"The thing that is so, well, obvious about this, not surprising, is we have all seen it for several years," said the "Morning Joe" host. "There are people who are deliberately, knowingly or unknowingly promoting Russian propaganda, propaganda that comes straight from the Kremlin. People whose TV shows have been pushed by the Kremlin to go on RT because they are spouting Russia propaganda points. There are people we've seen on Twitter for years, well-known people with followers, who are clearly, clearly pushing Russian propaganda points. Of course, one of the great ironies about this is, not really an irony, it's just cynicism and it is just, unfortunately, un-American."

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The indictment states that Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva funneled nearly $10 million to a Tennessee-based media company that contracted with conservative influencers who had big audiences, paying one of them – believed to be Johnson – $400,000 a month, plus a $100,000 signing bonus and additional performance bonuses, in exchange for just four videos a week.

"These are the same people that get out, a lot of them, that get out and talk about the 'Russian hoax,'" Scarborough said. "'Oh, it's the – Oh! There's no – come on, what are you talking about? There's no connection between, you know, this and Russia. Russia is not trying to – always apologizing for Russia, always apologizing for Putin. Always claiming that Vladimir Putin is not the bad guy, that Zelenskyy is actually the bad guy, like, the the historian who said Churchill is the bad guy in World War II, not Adolf Hitler."

"This has been going on for years – the kids call it gaslighting," Scarborough added. "Now, we found out at least a few of these who are just straight-on working for the Russian government, again, either knowingly or unknowingly."

Watch the video below or at this link.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

Whitney Fox is challenging MAGA firebrand Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) for Florida’s 13th Congressional District, which includes deep-blue St. Petersburg surrounded by the much redder Pinellas County. The race pits two women in their 30s with young children and vastly different views, reported the Times.

“We are two young women running against each other and we both have young children and we have completely different ideas of family policies and reproductive rights ” Fox said of her opponent. “I think we’re going to be able to really go head-to-head on those issues from personal places.”

Luna has described herself as a “pro-life extremist" who doesn't believe in exceptions for rape or other "terrible circumstances." Fox said she decided to challenge the congresswoman due to those views and her own support for the state ballot measure that would guarantee the right to abortion up to the point of viability, which Luna opposes.

“For women younger than 45, abortion has overtaken the economy as the single most important issue to their vote," said New York Times correspondent Ruth Igielnik.

That ballot measure, Amendment 4, and Harris' entering the race has driven up enthusiasm among Democrats, especially younger voters, and has given Fox a 48-44 lead over Luna in one local poll, although it's close to the margin of error. But political analysts think the first-time candidate might be attracting needed attention.

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“I do think that Fox is running a strong campaign, and I’ll be curious if the major Democratic groups (the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, House Majority PAC) end up spending money here this fall — that will be the real signal that this is a really competitive race," said Erin Covey, who leads the Cook Political Report’s coverage of House races, back in June.

Luna lost her first race, in 2020, but partisan gerrymandering two years later cut away part of St. Petersburg and tilted the district so far in favor of Republicans that the state was flagged by Princeton’s nonpartisan gerrymandering report card for a failing grade. Covey said the MAGA lawmaker “is the type of Republican who could underperform Trump” in Florida.

"If (a big if) Ms. Fox can triumph in this race," said Times correspondent Jessica Grose, "it could be much bigger than just a win in her district. It may be another sign that the MAGA brand of political theater is on the wane in some quarters, and that an exhausted moderate majority is ready for politics to be competent — and normal — again."

Donald Trump hasn't been able to land any particularly effective attacks on Kamala Harris since she became the Democratic nominee, and he almost seems to have given up trying.

The former president has limited himself on the campaign trail to giving interviews over the phone or at his Mar-a-Lago resort, and his TV advertisement spending has been largely limited to Georgia and Pennsylvania – which Salon columnist Heather Digby Parton argued is a disturbing sign of things to come after the votes are counted.

"You will notice that the Trump campaign is only competing in Pennsylvania and Georgia," Parton wrote. "All the other swing states are apparently being left to their own devices. This is surprising, to say the least. They do have less money to play with than the Democrats but you'd think they'd at least try to hedge their bets. But the consensus is that they have decided that if they can hold all their 2020 states they will put all their money on picking up those two states which will bring them to exactly 270."

That strategy requires that Trump holds onto North Carolina from 2020, but Parton said the campaign's focus on preserving the narrowest pathway to victory in two states where allies are already laying the groundwork to contest this year's results gives away the game.

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"If they lose either one (or N. Carolina) that's the ballgame," Parton wrote. "Just as likely they're really just planning on a post-election legal challenge in any or all of those states, claiming that the Democrats stole the election. You can certainly bet they'll do it in Pennsylvania and Georgia where they are already plotting with local officials. Trump himself has said repeatedly that 'our primary focus is not to get out the vote, it is to make sure they don’t cheat.'"

Trump tried but ultimately failed to overturn his 2020 election loss, and he and his allies have been indicted on multiple charges related to the wide-ranging scheme – which culminated with the attack on the U.S. Capitol that has resulted in the prosecutions and convictions of hundreds of his supporters.

"If they can find a way to throw the election to the House, as they wanted to do in 2020, they will win, and I kind of suspect that Trump would actually prefer to do it that way," Parton wrote. "It's the ultimate power play to make the Democrats lose through a post-election ploy that's engineered by Trump and his cronies. In his twisted mind, I think that would even validate his Big Lie."

In the meantime, Trump is going through the motions on the campaign trail while already laying the groundwork to question a loss that seems more likely with Harris as the nominee instead of president Joe Biden.

"All of this probably explains why Trump isn't really bothering to campaign much," Parton wrote. "He'll spend some time in Pennsylvania and Georgia and make some perfunctory stops in some of the other swing states just to keep it close enough to contest. He'll keep doing right-wing media, the purpose of which is as much to keep his followers charged up about the alleged stealing as anything else. But unless he wins those two big states, which he might, he's preparing for the post-election Big Lie 2.0."

"He's old and tired and at this point," she added, "I think he'd actually rather whine than win."