Pre-match: Can't believe it took this long for this thread, the 2024 Presidential election thread!

Just a little bit..

 

That was good to see Joe with Kamala together today. He was good too and got massive applauses from the crowd.


Biden got a thunderous round of applause from the crowd, which chanted "let’s go Joe,” and “thank you Joe,” as Harris began her introduction of him. “There’s a lot of love in this room for our president,” she said.

President Biden on VP Harris: "I have an incredible partner. She's gonna make one hell of a president."

He later jokes: "I told her I would campaign for her or against her — whichever would help the most."

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 15, 2024

 

“Donald Trump, at a news conference at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., accused Kamala Hariss of eyeing ‘communist’ policy proposals,” the New York Times reports.

“Before taking a question, he spent roughly 45 minutes delivering a diatribe barely distinguishable from a rally speech, deviating from prepared remarks about price increases and airing grievances about his legal troubles.”

Said Trump: “I think I’m entitled to personal attacks.”

Maggie Haberman: “This is now a greatest-hits reel, in which Trump is attacking Hillary Clinton for deleting emails. This news conference has gone off the rails.”

 

Alternate reality conflict:

The chyron juxtaposed with the stock ticker in the corner is *chef's kiss* pic.twitter.com/YXeBo4Uh3T

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 15, 2024

 

Mike Pence’s fly https://t.co/fz8vnVQXZw

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) August 15, 2024

 

I watched it, merely out of curiosity and uh, yeah. Just rambled all over the place in a monotone.

What annoys me about all the Biden age stuff is Trump is definitely the person who should be in a nursing home five years ago. There should be as many op eds about Trump not running for various reasons, but man, for all the complaints about Biden's age, it's aggravating that a lot of people never said the same for Trump.

 

I haven't sought out any studies on this or anything, but how much of an effect did the various Covid stimuli (checks, student loan forbearance, etc.) have on the cost of housing? Like, I know that housing costs have skyrocketed since the mini-recession during early Covid days, but how much of that is attributable to stimulus vs. other causes?

 

Trump really hates the thought of “injured, dead or captured” veterans…

He prefers the Medal of freedom that he gave one of his Mega donors but cant help to share his view on Medal of Honor

Trump: When we gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom… It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor— it’s actually much better because everyone who gets the Congressional Medal, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many… pic.twitter.com/a766KxAC2e

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 16, 2024

 

Oliver Darcy: “Donald Trump on Thursday succeeded — yet again — at effectively playing the news media. After hyping a ‘news conference’ this week, which the press helped eventize, Trump largely used his Thursday Bedminster event to deliver a lengthy, grievance-and-lie-filled speech — which CNN and Fox News broadcasted large chunks of to their audiences. Trump used the time to lash out at the ‘fake news media,’ fear monger about an ‘invasion’ of immigrants, attack Kamala Harris as a ‘radical left socialist’ who doesn’t love America, and claim the left has committed election ‘interference,’ among other things.”

“Eventually, CNN cut away from the spectacle, with Wolf Blitzer saying, ‘It’s been going on for almost a half an hour so far … and what was supposed to be a news conference so far — he hasn’t answered one question, he hasn’t taken any questions.’”

 

An other good take on talkingpointsmemo


They probably would have gotten to it on their own. But I think TPM Reader NR is right about the trajectory here.

"There’s an added component to your piece today on the media’s call for Harris to do interviews and put forward policies — the demand was a Republican demand first, and the media picked it up. Reporters didn’t come to this in some collective epiphany that they wanted more from the Harris campaign, but instead heard Trump and Vance and their surrogates claiming Harrs was too weak or unprepared or stupid to handle a presser. It is, once again, the media being led around by the right wing on what’s important and not important.
"As for your point that the media doesn’t really care about policy, there are two glaring examples from 2016 and 2020. The easiest one is from 2020 where the GOP decided not to draft or vote on a platform at all, but simply said, “We’re following Trump”. If there’s ever been a more substance free, policy devoid campaign than that one I’ve never seen it above dogcatcher. But the media mentioned it a little, but never demanded policy specifics beyond tax cuts and the border.

In 2016 there was a heartbreaking piece during Brexit when Trump went off to his golf club in Scotland and announced he’d have a press availability. The media dutifully showed up to the lectern out on a rough somewhere and for a good 45 minutes while Trump made them blathered on about what Trump was going to say about Brexit while showing the empty lectern. There was nothing happening, no news, no speech, not even a person in view of the cameras but the 24 hour cable channels stuck with it.

At the exact same time Hillary Clinton was giving a policy speech on how the federal government could support parents with expanded WIC funding, funded maternal care through the ACA, aggressive expansion of early childhood education, and tax credits for child care. It was a well thought out policy that had the potential to help millions of moms and dads but no one remembers it because the media prefered to cover an empty lectern and speculate on another country’s referendum on the EU during the height of a US presidential election."

At an important level, Harris shouldn’t want to and can’t expect to be judged by the bar set by Donald Trump, a degenerate scamp on his best days and a virulently racist wannabe dictator on his worst. But the comical disconnect between the two standards is one elite political reporters as a whole need to have some reckoning with. And beyond that, NR’s and many others’ responses to these complaints show the anger that has built up over the years over the almost total click-the-snooze-button, we-don’t-have-time attitude of most campaign reporters when it comes to discussions of policy.
Sure, everyone hates the press and just finds their own reasons to do it. Sometimes the press as a group and concept does indeed become the punching bag for all of people’s gripes and grievances about how campaigns and politics generally play out. But there’s a very legitimate gripe here. And it’s the source of the intensity of a lot of the pushback on this front.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/political-medias-faux-wonk-heel-turn

 

It looks like some sort of MLM meeting but with less enthusiasm.

 

Except that no one sits through one of these more than once while millions who bought the Donald Trump in 2016 are looking to buy the 2024 model.

 

Trump is quoting Hannibal Lecter, JDiVance thinks of Bill Cutting…

This moron knows the premise of Gangs of New York is a guy avenging his father's death by an anti-immigrant ahole? Right? Riiiiiight?

— Milenka~ (@MilenaAmit) August 16, 2024

What a weird cinematic universe…

 

What a bunch of clowns. One trick ponies.


House Republicans are setting their sights on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Democrats’ vice presidential candidate — the latest indication that they are using their slim majority to go after former President Donald Trump’s political opponents,” Politico reports.

“Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) on Friday announced that he is opening an investigation into Walz’s work related to China, including coordinating student trips, and sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray requesting a swath of documents and any correspondence with Walz related to China.”