memeorandum: Donald Trump Has No Idea What Has Hit Him, and It's a Joy to Watch (Michael Tomasky/New Republic)

1:10 PM ET, August 17, 2024

Top Items:

Harris Puts Four Sun Belt States Back in Play, Times/Siena Polls Find — Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are in close races across Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, crucial swing states that Mr. Trump had seemed en route to run away with just a few weeks ago.

Discussion: USA Today, Washington Examiner, PoliticusUSA, Mother Jones, The Hill, Mediaite, Alternet.org, New Jersey Online, Siena College Research …, Breitbart, Political Wire, Townhall and Boing Boing

Politico:

Playbook: How Harris is remaking the 2024 election — With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine — DRIVING THE DAY — If you needed yet more evidence that KAMALA HARRIS has dramatically transformed the contours of the 2024 race, there's a glut of it this morning.

Discussion: New York Times

Politico:

Harris reset the election, and congressional Dems are starting to shift strategies — Democrats are seeing new energy — and poll numbers. But they also know they still have a serious fight on their hands in November. — Battleground Democrats are suddenly jumping at the chance to campaign with the top of the ticket.

Discussion: PoliticusUSA, Alternet.org and Split Ticket

Washington Post:

The times demand serious economic ideas. Harris supplies gimmicks. — ‘Price gouging’ is not causing inflation. So why is the vice president promising to stamp it out? — Vice President Kamala Harris's speech Friday was an opportunity to get specific with voters about how a Harris presidency …

Discussion: HotAir, Breitbart, The Post Millennial, CNN, New York Post, The Daily Caller, Fox News, Townhall, The Moderate Voice, The Hill, Mediaite, New York Times, Rolling Stone, Washington Examiner, Forbes, Bloomberg and NPR

USA Today: Harris surges with Black voters in key battleground states but gaps remain

Politico: Playbook: Could the Harris campaign become the Harris movement?

NBC News:
The big question Harris has yet to answer: From the Politics Desk

Discussion: RedState

Irie Sentner / Politico:

‘When they go low, we go with the flow’: Dems ramp up attacks on Trump — Democrats are embracing snark. — If Democrats in 2016 rallied around Michelle Obama's mantra that “when they go low, we go high,” today they're burying that ambition under a hill of insults, memes and snark.

Discussion: Cleolinda everywhere

Mary L Trump / The Good in Us:

Trolling the Troll — Kamala Harris knows how to get under Donald's skin — Americans have known for a while that my uncle has the thinnest skin on the planet. We now know that Vice President Kamala Harris is all the way under it because Donald keeps admitting it. — “I'm very angry at her,” Donald said Thursday.

Discussion: Raw Story

Michael Tomasky / New Republic:

Donald Trump Has No Idea What Has Hit Him, and It's a Joy to Watch … It continues. Six days ago, The New York Times ran a story under the headline “Inside the Worst Three Weeks of Donald Trump's 2024 Campaign.” Usually, when the country's most important newspaper runs a story like that …

Discussion: Digby's Hullabaloo, KATV-TV, Alternet.org, Los Angeles Times and The Independent

Politico:

Age-based attacks are boomeranging back on Trump — The Harris campaign wants to make a more nuanced version of the argument. — Donald Trump spent months framing his opponent as a doddering old man who couldn't be trusted with the country's future. Now he's facing a similar attack from Kamala Harris.

Discussion: Raw Story

Paige Oamek / New Republic:
Trump Is Pissed at Harris for Trapping Him in Two Debates

Discussion: Raw Story, Townhall, RedState, The Daily Caller, Washington Examiner and New York Times

Axios:
Trump's Capitol Hill allies fume at his unfocused candidacy

Discussion: RedState, Punchbowl News, Washington Examiner, CNN and Raw Story

Joshua Kaplan / ProPublica:

Armed and Underground: Inside the Turbulent, Secret World of an American Militia — This story discusses threats of violence and contains a racial slur. — Reporting Highlights — Militias After Jan. 6: Internal messages reveal how AP3, one of the largest U.S. militias …

Yash Roy / The Hill:

Georgia replaces confederate monument with bronze statue of late Rep. John Lewis — Workers placed a bronze statue of the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) on the grounds of the Dekalb County Courthouse Friday — the same site where a Confederate monument was removed in 2020.

Ron Harris / Associated Press:

Bronze statue of John Lewis replaces more than 100-year-old Confederate monument — A large bronze statue of the late civil rights icon leader and Georgia congressman John Lewis was installed Friday, at the very spot where a contentious monument to the confederacy stood for more than 110 years …

The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S.:

VFW Admonishes Former President for Medal of Honor Remarks — The following is a message from VFW National Commander Al Lipphardt — WASHINGTON — “On Thursday, former President Donald Trump spoke at an event where he made some flippant remarks about the Medal of Honor and the heroes who have received it.

Leo Shane III / Military Times:
Trump belittles Medal of Honor award in campaign speech

Discussion: OutsideTheBeltway, Washington Examiner, The cornerstone of democracy, Raw Story, The Hill, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, CBS News, Alternet.org, New York Times, New Republic, Rolling Stone, NBC News and Politico

Washington Post:

Jared Kushner wants to turn a wild stretch of Albania into a luxury resort — Kushner's use of foreign funds is again coming under scrutiny. Environmentalists fear his planned resort could destroy a delicate ecosystem. — ZVERNEC, Albania — In one of his several trips to Albania …

Discussion: Raw Story

Marina Villeneuve / Salon:

Experts: Pro-Trump officials could face “severe” punishments if they refuse to certify election — “The threat of disruption looms large in this year's election” — but anti-certification efforts likely to backfire — Pro-Trump local election officials may try to slow down the certification …

Discussion: Washington Examiner

Rocio Fabbro / Quartz:

Kamala Harris wants to stop Wall Street's homebuying spree — Institutional investors could own 40% of single-family rental homes by 2030, according to one estimate — Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled plans to tackle the rise in Wall Street homeownership as part of a slate of economic proposals announced Friday.

Discussion: Raw Story