Leland Vittert’s War Notes: ‘Crooked Hillary’ and ‘Comrade Kamala’

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.

State of play :

• 63 days to the election
• 7 days to the debate set for Sept. 10
• Decision Desk HQ average : Harris +4, as of around 12 p.m. ET today. Click here to see the latest numbers.
  • PredictIt betting odds : 54 to 49 in favor of Harris

Turning Harris into Hillary

Trump’s best chance is to turn Harris into Hillary Clinton from 2016: A woman so profoundly unlikeable the country sours on her sense of entitlement, among other things.

• The Washington Post reports , “The Republican nominee’s advisers and allies are clear-eyed about the unlikelihood of improving his standing. That leaves one option: Damaging hers.”

The next 63 days of American politics will look something like schoolyard taunting sessions

• You are a communist
• Your dad was a slumlord
• Your dad was a Marxist
• You want to take away birth control pills
• You want to kill babies

Due respect : The Michelle Obama days of “When they go low, we go high” are over. Spare me the pearl-clutching.

Our buddy Chris Cillizza gave a pretty good take this morning…

As MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough laid out , Trump’s best chance comes from making Harris unlikeable.

• Republicans would argue it’s exposing Harris for what she is…
  • A neo-Marxist at heart who will tell you anything she thinks you want to hear…in the accent she thinks will get you most likely to listen
  • 📹 The clips of her wildly different accents and speech patterns is something to watch

Potential new nickname : Harris the Phony

Problem no. 1: Trump can’t stop being Trump

“How Trump keeps undermining his own strategy,” headlines Sophia Cai in Axios .

As usual, Cai’s deeply reported story shows the dangers and opportunities of Trump playing to the crowd rather than sticking to policy like his advisers want

• More nuance : Trump can’t distinguish between the attacks that land like “Comrade Kamala” or “Crooked Hillary” vs. the ones that don’t, like questioning Harris’ race.

Harris strategy :

• Wear headphones and play the victim
  • The still picture of Harris holding a phone as if she is talking with her earbuds in to ignore reporters says everything about her campaign.
  • Here is the video
  • And the Team Trump tweet from Tim Murtaugh
• Keep expanding the gender gap — support for Harris among women continues to grow.
  • Painting Trump as a misogynist will only harden that support
    • I heard a hot take this morning on Pod Save America : Couples who vote by mail routinely fill out their ballots together.
      • Watch for specific messaging by Team Harris on how women should push back when their husbands pressure them…

Harris is running as the underdog, yet she is up in every major national polling average and most swing states.

• But, Harris wants to run as the underdog.
• Axios reports on a campaign memo from Jen O’Malley Dillon
  • “However, make no mistake: we head into the final stretch of this race as the clear underdogs. Donald Trump has a motivated base of support, with more support and higher favorability than he has had at any point since 2020.”

James Carville — the “Ragin’ Cajun” — lays out his  “imperatives” for Harris .

Big coverage tonight :

• Bill O’Reilly will discuss the state of the race and whether Harris’ values or policy positions even matter
  • Plus, we’ll ask why Republicans keep missing easy issues like fentanyl
• Kristen Welker kept “Arlington Gate” alive when she told a whopper that Kamala Harris met with the Gold Star families of Abbey Gate — Harris didn’t.
  • Yet the New York Times seems to think it’s the families’ fault.
• Debate prep — one week from tonight Trump and Harris square off.
• The man “playing” Trump for Team Harris isn’t doing interviews — good thing we talked to him before he got the job — the best of Phillipe Reines a.k.a. Harris’s Donald Trump tonight!

Is Hamas Doing Enough?

As the Wall Street Journal and others point out President Biden, the media and the world now blame Israel for Hamas executing their hostages.

It’s obnoxious on many levels, not the least of which is that they were killed in Rafah where Biden-Harris pressure slowed an Israeli offensive for months — maybe that’s why Team Biden is so touchy…

• Gov. Tim Walz ran away from reporters when asked about the executed hostages.
  • My reaction : This guy wants to be one heartbeat away from president — he can’t even come up with an answer for murdered hostages?!
• Bill Ackman lays out the folly of the Biden foreign policy that got us here.
• Even Piers Morgan falls for it

Fact check : The Israel-Palestine conflict is fueled with money, propaganda, and weapons from Iran. Turn that money and support off, and the Israel-Palestine conflict ends.

• It’s telling how the American Left’s thought process toward Israel and the Palestinians most closely channels Iran’s worldview

Not doing enough: President Biden now speaks to the press way more than he ever did and far more than Harris does.

• He told reporters Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t doing enough to get a cease-fire and hostage deal

MUST WATCH : Click here to watch Netanyahu’s devastating response — we fact-checked it (true) and have the receipts

• What exactly more should Netanyahu do? As the above video shows Hamas doesn’t care about a cease-fire — whatever they are offered, they know the American president will force Israel to give more!

Thought bubble : Why doesn’t anybody ask if Hamas is doing enough?

• What would Biden say — after all, he told the DNC the pro-Hamas protesters “have a point.”
• Maybe a CNN reporter will — but I think not given how they covered the killings
  • CNN : “Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin has died, his family says in a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
  • Is this the same CNN that covered the Black Lives Matter riots as mostly peaceful?

Zoom out : Hamas just gave the middle finger to the world — they don’t want peace.

• Two weeks after Hersh Goldberg–Polin’s mother spoke at the DNC, they executed him on camera.

At the beginning of the war, we compared the images of Oct. 7 to that of the Nazis — the execution of the hostages brings back the same images of Nazis shooting innocent Jews.

• Hamas filmed it — click here to see stills from the videos they made.

“Finally you are free,” said Hersh’s mom … at his funeral.

Watch tonight : Joel Rubin will talk about the complete fallacy of peace talks and cease-fire — it’s just politics for both Biden and Netanyahu.

• Watch out : Biden’s been promising a cease-fire on “Monday” since April — and sees it as a political panacea. American Jews aren’t happy.

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.

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