Trump Attempts a Two-Pronged Attack on Harris

Happy Friday! If you need workout motivation, try being a vice presidential contender and watching pundits comment on your chances while you run on the treadmill—as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz did. 

Up to Speed

• Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with the top contenders to be her running mate this weekend, CNN reported today. Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Tim Walz of Minnesota, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, as well as Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, are all expected to meet with Harris. The development would explain why multiple contenders on Thursday canceled events they had planned around the same time. The Harris campaign is expected to announce its pick Monday or Tuesday of next week.
• Harris raised $310 million in July, including more than $200 million in the first week of her candidacy, her campaign said in a press release Friday. The presumptive Democratic nominee also claimed to have $377 million in cash on hand. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s campaign announced that it raised $137.8 million in the same month and has $327 million cash on hand. “These numbers reflect continued momentum with donors at every level and provide the resources for the final 96 days until victory November 5th,” the Republican nominee’s campaign said in a statement.
• In the largest prisoner swap with Russia since the Cold War, the United States and other Western countries secured the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich along with 15 other prisoners, including three American citizens and one U.S. green card holder. “The deal that secured their freedom was a feat of diplomacy,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “This is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world whom you can trust and depend upon. Our alliances make Americans safer.” In exchange, Western countries freed eight prisoners, including Vadim Krasikov, a former Russian FSB colonel held in Germany after being convicted of murdering a Chechen separatist fighter.   
• Abraham Hamadeh won the Arizona 8th Congressional District’s Republican primary, defeating Blake Masters. “Thank you Arizona, the grassroots, @KariLake, President Trump, and so many others who had my back,” Hamadeh wrote on X. “The good guys still have a shot… let’s roll.” Trump previously endorsed Hamadeh in December, and J.D. Vance endorsed Masters, but, in a last-minute shift, Trump threw his support behind both candidates just a few days before the election. 
• House Freedom Caucus chair Rep. Bob Good on Thursday lost the recount to Trump-endorsed state Sen. John McGuire in the Republican primary for Virginia’s 5th Congressional District. The initial margin was within 1 percentage point, with McGuire leading by 374 votes, and the recount narrowed his victory by four votes to 370. Trump’s May endorsement of McGuire—in which the former president called Good “BAD FOR VIRGINIA” and claimed he “turned his back on our incredible movement”—came after the hard-right incumbent endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the GOP presidential nomination.

Trump Launches Race-Based and Policy Attacks on Harris

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania—More than 7,000 people piled into the New Holland Arena Wednesday evening to see former President Donald Trump’s return to Pennsylvania for the first time since the assassination attempt in Butler County last month. Supporters were treated to a concert-like atmosphere that has become a staple of Trump rallies. The crowd danced to the Village People, did at least a dozen rounds of the wave, and held their phone flashlights up to “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.”  

But between the songs and montage clips of the former president played on the jumbotrons, two curious screenshots of headlines were shown on a loop in the arena. One was a Business Insider reprint of a 2016 Associated Press headline that read “California’s Kamala Harris becomes first Indian-American U.S. Senator.” The other was a similar title from a Sacramento Bee video: “Watch Kamala Harris sworn in as first Indian-American senator.”  

The displays followed comments Trump made to the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago Wednesday ahead of the Harrisburg rally, falsely suggesting the vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee downplayed her black heritage earlier in her political career. The remarks there, in addition to his speech in Harrisburg, reflected Trump’s oscillating attack against his freshly minted opponent: on one hand, making an ugly attempt at racialization, on the other criticizing Harris’ policy positions. 

“I didn’t know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black and now, she wants to be known as black,” Trump claimed at the NABJ convention. “So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she black?” He continued, “I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t because she was Indian all the way and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she went—she became a black person.” 

Harris is biracial, the daughter of a Jamaican American and an Indian immigrant, and she has identified as both black and South Asian throughout her career. She also attended Howard University, a historically black university, where she became a member of the oldest black sorority in the country. 

Harris responded to Trump’s comments by calling it “the same old show.” “The American people deserve better than Donald Trump’s divisiveness and disrespect,” she added.

Trump continued his attack on social media, posting on his Truth Social account, “Crazy Kamala is saying she’s Indian, not Black,” alongside a clip from 2019 that features Harris and Mindy Kaling, an Indian American actress and comedian, cooking Indian food. He also shared a post from Laura Loomer, a conspiracy theorist who once described herself as a “proud Islamophobe,” showing a copy of the vice president’s birth certificate and saying that it doesn’t denote Harris as black or African. 

A chorus of Republican lawmakers publicly and privately denounced Trump’s comments on Harris’ racial identity, describing the remarks as inappropriate and distracting from more effective attacks against Harris like her record on border security and immigration. A handful of Trump’s closest congressional allies, such as Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, backed the former president’s attack. 

There were further allusions to Harris’ identity in the warm-up act to Trump at Wednesday’s rally. “Unlike you, Kamala, I know who my roots are,” Alina Habba, Trump’s former lawyer, told the crowd. “I know where I come from.” 

Not everyone in Harrisburg seemed receptive to identity attacks. One younger rally attendee who said she’s leaning toward voting for Trump told Dispatch Politics that she’s glad a biracial woman is a leading candidate for the presidency. “I am a woman, I’m also biracial, so I love the representation,” said Emily Parker, a 20-year-old who came to the rally with her parents and noted that she’s not really into politics. “I think that that’s great, especially to younger girls.” 

Trump arrived at the Harrisburg arena late after a nearly two-hour gap from the last speaker. The Republican nominee tried a more conventional political attack in his remarks, homing in on Harris’ past positions. He ticked through a list of policy stances he ascribed to Harris, from defunding the police to an electric vehicle mandate, labeling her an “extreme liberal candidate.” The former president also spent a large chunk of time blaming Harris for the migrant crisis at the southern border, saying she supports open borders. 

The message echoed the campaign’s recent ads trying to amplify Harris’ more progressive stances on fracking, gun control, and health care espoused in her 2020 presidential primary campaign.

While Trump steered clear of racial attacks in his speech, he weaved in personal insults, calling Harris crazy and not smart and claiming she faked a southern accent at a Tuesday rally in Atlanta. He also suggested that Harris wouldn’t be able to deal with world leaders. “Can anybody imagine her dealing with President Xi of China?” Trump asked the crowd. 

The direction of Trump’s campaign against Harris may shift once again in the coming days as the vice president selects her running mate. The selection could be an attempt to insulate her from attacks about immigration or a portrayal as a radical California Democrat.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is one of the top contenders for the veep slot and his appeal was apparent at the Harrisburg rally. “As far as a Democrat, he’s one of the better ones—I will say that for Josh,” Terry, a 70-year-old from Selinsgrove, told Dispatch Politics, noting that his sister likes the governor. Dave Sherry, a retired restaurant owner from Boiling Springs, said Shapiro “seems to be a good governor,” adding that “I don’t have any problems with what he’s been doing for our state.” 

Still, any Democratic pick is highly unlikely to dislodge Trump’s loyal supporters, whether they’re fans of Shapiro or not.“I don’t know much about Josh Shapiro, but I do know he’s a Democrat,” said Daniel, a 28-year-old truck driver from Lancaster County. “And I know nothing’s changed for the good in Pennsylvania [the] last couple of years he’s been in.” 

For Democrats, Beating Trump Overshadows Policy Preferences

What do Democratic voters want to hear from their presumptive presidential nominee on policy? Whatever it takes to win, several told The Dispatch. In a new piece on the site today, David M. Drucker reports from a Kamala Harris campaign event near Philadelphia that her base supporters are hoping the vice president takes a pragmatic approach in the final three months of the campaign. Here’s an excerpt:

But anxiety over the former president’s potential return to the Oval Office is making political pragmatists out of even the most dedicated Democratic partisans. Not only did these voters say Harris has their blessing to moderate on key issues, some said they hope she triangulates, believing the strategy is essential to victory. This latitude to maneuver is a crucial development with ramifications for November, especially as Harris prepares to select a running mate.

“I think she should move to the center a little bit and not be billed as a left-wing—what they’re putting her out to be, a liberal,” Rich Migliore, 72, a retired teacher and attorney who now represents educators in due-process rights cases, said while waiting for Shapiro and Whitmer to take the stage in a packed high school gymnasium “We can’t move backward as a country. We need to move forward.”

Another of the approximately 1,200-plus rallygoers, Michele Cohen, is a middle-aged attorney who described her personal political preferences as once moderate but now “left, left, left”—an evolution she credited to Trump’s rise and putative leadership of the Republican Party since 2015. Cohen also wants Harris to embrace centrism, possibly explained by the fact that she lives in a battleground state where far-left and far-right politicians have a harder time winning.

“I believe in being in the center,” Cohen explained. “That’s the way we actually get things done. So, you move past the rhetoric and actually move to governing.”

Just how much compromising Democrats are willing to do to beat Trump may be put to the test. Harris is set to announce her running mate no later than Tuesday, when she and the Democratic Party’s vice presidential pick are scheduled to appear together in Philadelphia before heading across the country on a multistate campaign swing. Shapiro, a leading contender to get Harris’ nod, is considered too moderate by some Democrats and could disappoint elements of the party’s activist base.

But as Drucker discovered, the voters who showed up to Monday’s rally are willing for Harris and her running mate to moderate wherever they need to if it means getting closer to defeating Trump—except on one key issue:

In the preceding campaign for the Democratic nomination that year, Harris staked out several positions that seemed designed to take votes away from Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent and avowed socialist who was the frontrunner in that race until Biden won the South Carolina primary. As pointed out in recent reporting from the New York Times, Harris supported establishing a quasi-government-run health care system; flirted with radically restructuring the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency; and backed a federal ban on fracking—a jobs-rich form of domestic energy production.

Harris has backed or signaled openness to other progressive policies that could foster opposition from all-important persuadable independent voters and disaffected Republicans. It’s why the Democratic voters we spoke with here in Montgomery County, a Philadelphia “collar county” along the city’s western edge and crucial suburban micro-battleground, are giving Harris permission to tack center on major issues. Only maintaining strong support for abortion rights appears sacrosanct. 

“I feel like I [could] give a lot of leeway except for abortion, we need to bring back freedom for abortion,” said Jane Curtis, a retired teacher.

Read the whole thing here.

Notable and Quotable

“Donald Trump proudly said ‘blame it on me’ if the bill failed. JD Vance, putting Trump ahead of our security, followed his orders. That’s why he’s Trump’s VP, he’s a loyal little boy.”

—Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign in a press email August 1, 2024.