memeorandum: Pro-Trump super PAC plans $100M ad blitz (Alex Isenstadt/Politico)

5:35 PM ET, August 12, 2024

Top Items:

In Which Ian Miles Cheong Understands Trump's Campaign Better than NYT — The second I saw video of Vice President Harris rolling up to a hangar at Detroit's airport on Air Force Two, then alighting with Tim Walz in front of cheering crowds, I knew it would break Donald Trump's brain.

Discussion: New Jersey Online, Vanity Fair, The Detroit News, Balloon Juice, Digby's Hullabaloo, ComingSoon.net and New York Times, more at Techmeme »

Jeet Heer / The Nation:

Why Donald Trump Can't Let Go of Joe Biden — The former president is caught in a nostalgia trap of his own making. — Pocket — With remarkable speed, the Democratic Party has embraced Kamala Harris as their presumptive nominee and moved on from Joe Biden, the party's standard-bearer since 2020 …

Discussion: New York Magazine, CNN and Mediaite

Peter Wehner / The Atlantic:

Trump Can't Deal With Harris's Success — Kamala Harris has had as good a three-week stretch as any presidential candidate in modern American history. — When Joe Biden dropped out on July 21, less than a month after his catastrophic debate performance against Donald Trump …

Discussion: HuffPost

Charlotte Alter / TIME:

The Reintroduction of Kamala Harris — The soundtrack suggested a Beyoncé concert. The light-up bracelets evoked the Eras Tour. And the exuberant crowd—more than 14,000 strong, lining up in the rain—resembled the early days of Barack Obama. Inside a Philadelphia arena on Aug. 6 …

Discussion: freebeacon.com, UnHerd, RedState, The Atlantic, American Greatness, Washington Post, New York Post, Twitchy, Mediaite and Fox News

Amanda Marcotte / Salon:
Republicans can't replace their old man nominee, so they're pretending JD Vance is the GOP candidate

Discussion: Raw Story, New Republic and Washington Post

John L. Dorman / Business Insider:
Kamala Harris is going on the offensive on border security. It could keep Arizona blue and cut off Trump's path to victory.

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Fox News and Axios

James Powel / USA Today: Harris becomes betting favorite in presidential election odds after swing state barnstorm

Politico:
Playbook: The unwritten Harris agenda

Discussion: HotAir, CNN, Fox News, Associated Press and Townhall

Seb Starcevic / Politico:

EU warns Musk on hate speech ahead of Trump interview; receives profane response — The European Union's digital enforcer wrote an open letter to tech mogul Elon Musk on Monday ahead of a planned interview with former United States President Donald Trump to remind him of the EU's rules on promoting hate speech.

Discussion: Euronews, The Hill, Byline Times, Politico, RedState, Breitbart, Reuters, New York Times, One America News Network, UnHerd, American Greatness, Raw Story, The Gateway Pundit, Human Events and RTÉ

Popular Information:

The most expensive political ad of all time — In 2022, Elon Musk purchased Twitter, one of the world's largest social networks, for $44 billion. From a financial perspective, it has not worked out well. Over the last two years, the value of Twitter — which Musk renamed X — has plunged.

Discussion: Bloomberg, NBC News, The Guardian, CBS News, BBC, Deadline, The National Pulse, The Hill, Variety, RedState, TMZ.com, Breitbart, The Sun, Washington Examiner and Twitchy

emptywheel:

Elon Musk's Machine for Political Violence — Last October, I wrote a post called “Elon Musk's Machine for Fascism,” describing how Twitter had twice served Donald Trump's electoral ambitions. — In 2016, trolls — including Don Jr — workshopped memes on a DM list and then used their reach to pressure MSM to adopt their narratives.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Associated Press, Townhall, Breitbart and New York Daily News

Miranda Nazzaro / The Hill:
Trump posts campaign ad on X ahead of Musk interview

Discussion: NBC News, HuffPost, USA Today, UPI, Townhall, Axios, New Republic, Washington Times, Breitbart, City A.M., Raw Story, The Daily Caller, Semafor and IJR

Hafiz Rashid / New Republic:
Desperate Trump Returns to X as Poll Numbers Keep Tanking

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, NBC News, The Daily Beast, Reuters, Washington Examiner, Twitchy, Bloomberg, New York Post, Alternet.org, Business Insider and The Hill

Wall Street Journal:
Inside Elon Musk's Hands-On Push to Win 800,000 Voters for Trump

Discussion: Semafor, Business Insider, New Jersey Online and CNBC

Michael Tomasky / New Republic:

Donald Trump Is Freaked Out in Ways He Never Imagined Were Possible — The Harris-Walz campaign proved two important things last week. First, it proved that sometimes all you really have to do is answer attacks—the mere fact of answering them deflates their momentum.

Discussion: Roll Call, The Daily Beast and Scripting News

Stephen Robinson / Public Notice:
Desperate times: Trumpers launch Swiftboating 2.0

Discussion: Washington Examiner

Dani Blum / New York Times:

Should You Get Another Covid Shot Now? — The virus is spreading, but new vaccines coming this fall could offer better protection. We asked experts about the right time for a booster. — Patients keep asking Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California …

Brooke Singman / Fox News:

Trump to sue DOJ for $100M over Mar-a-Lago raid, alleging ‘political persecution’ — Trump attorney says ‘unconstitutional’ raid should never have been approved by Garland, Wray — Join Fox News for access to this content — EXCLUSIVE: Former President Donald Trump is set to sue …

CNN:
Trump wants Justice Department to pay him $100 million for alleged damages from FBI's Mar-a-Lago search

Discussion: Forbes

NBC News: Trump plans to file a $100 million lawsuit against the Justice Department over Mar-a-Lago search and ‘witch hunts’

Amanda Seitz / Associated Press:

Dozens of pregnant women, some bleeding or in labor, being turned away from ERs despite federal law — WASHINGTON (AP) — Bleeding and in pain, Kyleigh Thurman didn't know her doomed pregnancy could kill her. — Emergency room doctors at Ascension Seton Williamson in Texas handed …

Discussion: The Hill, The 19th, Democrats and The Texas Tribune

Josephine Rozzelle / CNBC:

White House launches broad new regulatory effort, as Harris prepares to unveil economic plan … The Biden Administration on Monday unveiled a new, multi-agency regulatory initiative to target corporate practices that officials claim are designed to waste consumers' time and needlessly burden …

Discussion: Bloomberg, Plain Dealer, HuffPost, Quartz and Washington Examiner

Cheyenne Haslett / ABC News:
Canceling subscriptions should be as easy as signing up, newly proposed federal rule says

Discussion: Reuters, Associated Press and CBS News

The White House:
FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Launches New Effort to Crack Down on Everyday Headaches and Hassles That Waste Americans' Time and Money

Discussion: Axios, UPI, GovExec.com and Forbes

David Gardner / The Daily Beast:

Second Photo Alleged to Show JD Vance in Drag Posted Online — OMG! — The Vance campaign has not denied that the man in drag in a viral photo was Donald Trump's 2024 presidential election running mate. — A second image of JD Vance allegedly dressed as a woman in a blonde wig has been posted to X, formerly known as Twitter.

Discussion: HuffPost, Boing Boing, New Republic, LGBTQ Nation and New York Daily News

Alex Isenstadt / Politico:

Pro-Trump super PAC plans $100M ad blitz — The ads come as Republicans seek to undercut Kamala Harris ahead of the DNC. — A pro-Trump super PAC is planning a $100 million TV ad blitz in the lead-up to Labor Day, a massive sum as Trump moves to regain his footing in the campaign.

Discussion: Washington Examiner, Bloomberg, New Republic, Raw Story and New York Daily News

Alex Gangitano / The Hill:
Harris campaign touts border record in new ad

Discussion: Mediaite

Jonathan Nicholson / HuffPost:

House GOP Hardliners Threaten Government Shutdown Over Baseless Illegal Voters Bill — A right-wing group known as the Freedom Caucus says Republicans should insist on the bill when Congress returns in September. — LOADING — A group of hardline House Republican conservatives …

Discussion: NBC News, New Republic, The Daily Signal, Washington Examiner, Washington Times and Fox News

Kaia Hubbard / CBS News:
House Freedom Caucus backs short-term funding bill to avoid government shutdown

Discussion: Raw Story, The Hill and Politico

Kadia Goba / Semafor:

Poll: Democratic attacks on JD Vance are working — The Scoop — New polling shared exclusively with Semafor shows Democrats' attacks on JD Vance's views on abortion, divorce and “childless cat ladies” are sticking with voters. — A pair of surveys by Blueprint, the centrist Democratic pollster backed …

Discussion: PoliticusUSA, New Republic, Boing Boing, Raw Story and Blueprint

Travis Gettys / Raw Story:

Betsy DeVos would consider working with Trump again — under one condition — Donald Trump's former education secretary Betsy DeVos has changed her mind on serving in his administration if he wins re-election. — DeVos resigned on Jan. 7, 2021, following the U.S. Capitol riot, which she called …

Discussion: The Daily Beast

Tom Perkins / The Guardian:

US air force avoids PFAS water cleanup, citing supreme court's Chevron ruling — EPA says Tucson's drinking water is contaminated but air force claims agency lacks authority to order cleanup — The US air force is refusing to comply with an order to clean drinking water it polluted in Tucson …

Russell Contreras / Axios:

Early numbers show violent crime dropping sharply … - It also gives Vice President Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor in San Francisco and California attorney general, a potent defense against attacks from the right on crime. … - 54 of the 69 major cities in the report saw drops in violent crime …

Discussion: Washington Examiner, Boing Boing, Digby's Hullabaloo and Fox News

Glenn Kessler / Washington Post:

JD Vance's false claim that ‘green energy scam’ ships jobs to China — The GOP vice-presidential candidate knocks the Inflation Reduction Act, which was designed to combat China's green energy dominance. — “She cast the deciding vote for the so-called Inflation Reduction Act that sent a lot of our resources to China.”