Leland Vittert’s War Notes: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised

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 :

• 50 days to the election
• Decision Desk HQ average : Kamala Harris +3.4, as of around noon ET today. Click here to see the latest numbers.
  • PredictIt betting odds : 58 to 46 in favor of Harris.

What Will Trump Do?

Tomorrow night, Donald Trump holds his first town hall since the second assassination attempt — wow, talk about a sentence you never thought you would read!

50 days out, Trump faces a unique opportunity: He must capitalize politically on his second assassination attempt in a way he failed after the first.

• Post-Butler Trump squandered the focus of his convention acceptance speech — and since then suffered a series of self-inflicted wounds.
• The golf course in Palm Beach is supposed to provide him a respite from stewing in his political reality.
  • Instead, it’s become a cesspool of his worst instincts — where conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer looms large.

Unfocused : Rather than constantly attacking Harris on the Biden record, he’s posting on social media, “I hate Taylor Swift”

• There is a winning message for suburban women!
• There are real pros on Trump’s staff … Trump just isn’t listening to them.

NBC writes , “Trump allies worry his ties to far-right activist Laura Loomer could cost him Georgia and North Carolina.”

• Yes, it’s NBC reporting … that doesn’t mean they are wrong.

Every day the election is about what Trump is doing is a day that nobody is talking about Vice President Kamala Harris — thus, we are a day closer to the election with no scrutiny on her.

• Harris and Tim Walz figured out they don’t need the media and can snub them without consequence — it’s a brilliant revaluation.
• Even progressives in her own party no longer care about her political flip-flops
  • Click here to read our colleague Alexander Bolton’s great piece in The Hill: “Democrats bet Harris will move left as president.”
    • He writes, “With the general election only 50 days away, leading progressives on Capitol Hill are too alarmed by the prospect of a second Trump term to complain about Harris’s reinvention as a centrist. They expect she’ll back them up in policy fights if elected president.”

Watch tonight : Bill O’Reilly on whether Trump is capable of running a winning campaign for the next 50 days … and after the past few weeks, who would want to be his chief of staff if he won?

The “Great” Movie You Have Never Heard Of

“Am I Racist?” is now in the box office top five — moviegoers love it, critics ignore it .

The Matt Walsh documentary goes inside the world of DEI and anti-racism — here is the one review Walsh points to.

You can watch the trailer here .

Watch tonight : Walsh joins us to explain an industry that puts profits over principal and, more importantly, to discuss whether the lack of reviews proves his point.

How Quickly We Forget!

Go back to June 16 — in three months, we had:

• The Trump-Biden debate
• The first assassination attempt
• The RNC
• Biden dropping out
• The Harris coronation
• The DNC
• The Trump-Harris debate
• The second assassination attempt

Everything is moving so quickly — almost anything can define the race.

For example, you missed Harris’ interview Friday with a Philadelphia TV station — it was so bad that Team Trump posted the whole thing and called it their new campaign ad.

Watch tonight : We’ll have pollster Mark Penn on to discuss how quickly we forget and what, if anything, will actually change the narrative.

• All that matters — Brookings profiles the ten thousand people who might decide the election.

Beyond the ten thousand, there is big business in dividing the rest of us.

Just watch the coverage of Trump’s second assassination attempt

• Both Lester Holt of NBC and Alex Witt of MSNBC appeared to blame Trump’s rhetoric on the attempt on his own life

By this morning, much of the pro-Harris media had moved on from the assassination attempt and specifically the background of the gunman.

• What if :
  • What if the Secret Service shot a Trump-inspired gunman who got close to Harris?
  • Would the broadcast networks have broken into NFL games?
  • What would the experts say about Trump’s rhetoric?
  • Would there be another debate?
  • Would there be a discussion about the size of Harris’ Secret Service detail because she could be the first Black woman president?

Fair question : If you blame Trump for Jan. 6, shouldn’t you blame Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., for the attempted assassinations (yes, plural) of Trump?

Follow the money : There is more money in dividing than uniting us — but much of traditional, partisan media risks becoming obsolete.

• The more they salivate over Harris-Walz, the less relevant legacy media becomes, especially if Harris wins.

Case in point : As we have said, the only way people care about Springfield, Ohio, is if they can attack Trump.

Russell Moore writes in The Atlantic : “If we’re willing to see children terrorized because of a false rumor about Haitian immigrants, we should ask who abducted our conscience, not someone’s pet.”

• JD Vance explained it when asked about the hyperbolic nature of Trump’s and his claims of Haitian immigrants eating pets: “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

Again, nobody is willing to have an honest conversation about the problems of the nearly 60,000 Americans in Springfield … all that matters is demonizing Trump.

• If Trump had said hospitals in Springfield were overrun with immigrants, nobody would care.

The Agent Missed!

Lost in the coverage of the past 24 hours is what happened to the four shots fired by a Secret Service agent at the suspect and his rifle in the fence line.

• Spoiler alert : The agent missed.
• It’s one of many, many questions about yesterday’s assassination attempt.

Zoom out : Was this a Secret Service success or failure?

• Does Trump need a presidential-level security detail?

Watch tonight : Former Secret Service Supervisory Special Agent Chuck Marino will discuss how the agency must now adapt.

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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