J.D. Vance Attacks Kamala Harris in the Sunday Show Circuit

Happy Monday! Yesterday marked the 51st anniversary of hip-hop, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was pretty excited about it.

Up to Speed

• Vice President Kamala Harris said she supported the elimination of federal taxes on tips, a popular policy in Nevada, where she held a rally Sunday. “When I am president, we will continue our fight for working families of America, including to raise the minimum wage, and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers,” she said. In response, former President Donald Trump, pointed out that he had proposed a similar policy in early June—also in Nevada. “This was a TRUMP idea – She has no ideas, she can only steal from me,” he wrote in a Truth Social post.
• The next day, Trump accused Harris’ campaign of using artificial intelligence to fake images of a large crowd at her Wednesday rally in Detroit. “Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport?” he claimed in a Sunday Truth Social post. “There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST!” The Harris campaign replied on Truth Social to the post with a video of Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz descending the stairs of Air Force Two at the rally, showing the crowd. Dispatch Politics attended the rally in question and reported on it Friday, and we can assure you the crowd was real and not artificially generated.
• Trump has seemed disoriented since President Joe Biden exited the 2024 contest and Harris replaced him as the Democratic nominee, according to a Saturday story in the New York Times. The report describes Trump’s behavior as “unpredictable” since he survived an assassination attempt, received a triumphant welcome at the Republican National Convention, and now faces a new opponent in Harris who is now surging—all in less than a month.
• The Republican primary for Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District, from which Rep. Mike Gallagher resigned earlier this year, is Tuesday with the major endorsements split between two candidates. Trump has backed Tony Weid, a businessman who owned a chain of convenience stores, while former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker have endorsed Roger Roth, a veteran who was the running mate to 2022 GOP gubernatorial nominee Tim Michels.
• Former President Donald Trump posted on X for the first time since having his mug shot taken almost a year ago and the second time since his ban from the platform following the January 6, 2021 riot. “As long as we have pride in our beliefs, courage in our convictions, and faith in our God, we will not fail,” he says in a campaign video in the post. It comes hours before X owner Elon Musk interviews him Tuesday evening.
• The House Freedom Caucus released an official position Monday, opposing a potential omnibus bill from Democrats that extends liberal spending policies far beyond the start of the next presidential administration. “The House Freedom Caucus believes that House Republicans should return to Washington to continue the work of passing all 12 appropriations bills to cut spending and advance our policy priorities. If unsuccessful, in the inevitability that Congress considers a Continuing Resolution, government funding should be extended into early 2025 to avoid a lame duck omnibus that preserves Democrat spending and policies well into the next administration,” the group said. The statement is one of the first shots in a brewing spending battle set to take place when Congress returns from its August recess next month. Lawmakers will need to fund the government by their September 30 deadline in order to avoid a shutdown.

J.D. Vance Shows His Quality on the Sunday Talk Show Circuit

J.D. Vance displayed on three different Sunday political shows this weekend how he could thrive as the top surrogate for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign—once the Republican vice presidential nominee got past the numerous legitimate questions about his own prior statements and the actions of his running mate.

Vance, the Republican senator from Ohio, appeared on ABC, CBS and CNN, facing intense questions about impolitic rhetoric as well as Trump’s policy positions on abortion, big tech regulation, foreign policy, and immigration. He demonstrated his ability to speak with confident authority and is rhetorically agile, even when taking both sides of an issue—or no sides of an issue. In contrast to Trump, who speaks bluntly, sometimes carelessly, in sit-down interviews, Vance successfully filled in policy details and attempted to reassure.

But the most notable distinction from the top of the GOP ticket was Vance’s discipline. The Republican No. 2 used the Sunday show opportunities effectively to score clean hits against Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.

“I think that unfortunately, Kamala Harris has run a campaign where every time she’s in front of voters, a teleprompter is in between. She doesn’t really talk to the media, like at all. She hasn’t answered, I think, a single tough question from a reporter,” Vance told CBS News anchor Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation. “So yeah, one of my jobs is to get out there and just make sure the American people know that this is a person who supported open borders, who suspended deportations, who stopped the Remain in Mexico policy that kept a lot of Americans safe.”

Vance made similar arguments against Harris on ABC News’ This Week with Jonathan Karl and CNN’s State of the Union with Dana Bash. 

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung expressed satisfaction with the senator’s performance, telling Dispatch Politics Monday morning in a text message that “Vance was phenomenal on the Sunday shows as he strongly prosecuted the case against the radical ticket of Kamala Harris and [Minnesota Gov.] Tim Walz, who are weak, failed, and dangerously liberal.”

Democrats, naturally, offered the opposite assessment, with the Democratic National Committee calling the interviews a “trainwreck trio.”

“JD Vance once again showed America that he is not ready for primetime – or even Sunday mornings,” DNC spokesman Alex Floyd said in a published statement. “He did himself no favors today by doubling down on an extreme, out-of-touch MAGA agenda that is a proven loser at the ballot box.”

The reality of Vance’s performance likely lies somewhere between the grades given by the Trump campaign and the DNC. He pushed back on a tough line of questioning from Bash by asking how Harris would respond to important questions. Bash pointed out that she was interviewing Vance, not Harris, and the Republican jumped at the opportunity to point out Harris’ conspicuous avoidance of the press.

“You are interviewing me, Dana, because I respect the American people enough to sit down for an interview,” Vance responded. “Kamala Harris has been the nominee for three weeks. She hasn’t sat down for a real interview.”

To get to that point, however, Vance had to wade through a number of sticky questions about his own past comments and Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric and actions—including issues hitting close to home for Vance. At various times, the senator dodged direct questions. For instance, when Karl pressed Vance multiple times to explain Trump’s plan for deporting up to 20 million illegal immigrants, the senator ultimately declared the question unfair and out of context, reframing the query entirely.

“I think it’s interesting that people focus on, well, how do you deport 18 million people? Let’s start with 1 million, that’s where Kamala Harris has failed, and then we can go from there,” Vance said.

When asked by Karl about the criticism that white nationalist personality Nick Fuentes directed at Vance’s wife Usha, who is the daughter of immigrants from India, Vance agreed with the anchor that Fuentes was engaging in “racist garbage” and said that people like him should not attack his wife. But Karl pressed Vance on the uncomfortable fact that less than two years ago Fuentes dined with Trump and rapper Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago, and that Trump has not condemned Fuentes. Vance attempted to defend both his wife’s honor and his running mate’s choice of associates.

“The one—the one thing I like about Donald Trump, Jon, is that he actually will talk to anybody. But just because you talk to somebody doesn’t mean you endorse their views,” Vance said. “And look, I mean Donald Trump spent a lot of quality time with my wife. Every time he sees her, he gives her a hug, tells her she’s beautiful, and jokes around with her a little bit. I’m not at all worried about Donald Trump.”

And when asked by Bash about his 2021 criticism of Harris on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program—when Vance infamously went after the Democratic Party for letting the country be run by “childless cat ladies”—he struggled to contextualize the swipe as a policy criticism. 

“I criticized Kamala Harris for being part of a set of ideas that exists in American leadership that is anti-family,” Vance said. “I never, Dana, criticized people for not having kids. I criticized people for being anti-child. And I do think that Kamala Harris has made some bizarre statements. She has said things like, it’s reasonable not to have children over climate change. I think that’s the exact opposite message we should be sending to our young families.”

To be fair, Harris in a speech last year identified “climate change anxiety” as a reason some young people have said they do not want to start families. And in that 2021 interview with Carlson Vance did, in fact, criticize Harris by name (along with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) for not having children and therefore not having a “direct stake” in the country.

But when the conversations turned to policy on Sunday, Vance’s ability to parry questions shone. Asked by Brennan about Republican opposition to universal child care, Vance said instead that he is opposed to “one model of child care” given favor by the federal government.

“I grew up in a poor family where the child care was my grandparents, and a lot of these child care proposals do nothing for grandparents. If you look at some of these proposals, they do nothing for stay-at-home moms or stay-at-home dads. I want us to have a child care policy that’s good for all families, not just a particular model of family, and that’s what I’ve said,” Vance said.

Pressed by Brennan, Vance clarified that he supports a child-care credit for any adult guardians, from stay-at-home parents to grandparents. “Gay families, they’d be included? All families?” Brennan pushed. “All families would be included of course. All families would be included,” Vance responded.

The exchange reflects another strength Vance brings to the Republican effort that Trump is lacking—an ability to articulate the GOP ticket’s economic populism coherently.

But ultimately, Vance fulfilled his role as defender-in-chief of Trump, which may be the most important accomplishment for the Republican vice presidential hopeful. When Trump was asked about Vance in his recent appearance in front of the National Association of Black Journalists, the GOP nominee admitted that running-mate selections don’t matter in presidential elections. Vance dutifully agreed on Sunday.

“Well, I think President Trump’s right about that, actually. I think most people are voting for Donald Trump or for Kamala Harris. Donald Trump delivered rising wages and a secure border. Kamala Harris has delivered an open border and falling wages relative to inflation and groceries and housing and so forth. So I think that he’s actually right, that most people, when they cast their ballots, they’re basing it based on who the presidential nominee is, not the vice presidential nominee. It’s just straightforward political reality,” Vance told Brennan on CBS. “I think Donald Trump’s right.”

A Liberal Super PAC Looks to Sow Chaos in Alaska’s Primaries

Fringe Republican Gerald Heikes has built practically no campaign infrastructure in his run for Alaska’s at-large seat in the House of Representatives, and he’s not sure whether he’ll make it through next week’s primary—but a liberal super PAC has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars attacking him.

The spending has been a surprise even to Heikes, who has said that “Gazans or any Arabs has no choice, but to kill in the name of Allah,” that they are “taught this from theirs mothers t—,” and that “Jews or gentiles, are in the crosshairs.” 

“I find that this is truly amazing, that you and other people in the national scene are taking an interest in me because, basically, no, I don’t have a campaign website, and I’m not accepting funds at this time. I’m just out here—I’m letting God do His thing,” Heikes told Dispatch Politics. His not engaging in fundraising explains why there is no information available for him on the Federal Election Committee (FEC) website. He mounted unsuccessful campaigns for the House seat in 2016 and 2020, for Senate in 2008, and for the state’s governorship in 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018. He never garnered more than 6 percent of the vote in the primaries and got less than 1 percent in some.

Nevertheless, the super PAC Vote Alaska Before Party has spent more than $300,000 to run digital and TV ads that call him “too conservative on abortion” and claim he will “join the Republicans who want to ban abortion nationwide” in Congress. That amount contributes to the more than $900,000 the PAC has spent since late July against Heikes, Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, and businessman Nick Begich, all of whom are running to unseat Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola.

The spending reeks of a strategy Democrats utilized to great effect in the 2022 midterms and have done so in a more limited way this cycle: boosting fringe candidates over more moderate ones in GOP primaries in the (often accurate) hope that they would be easier to beat in the general election. It has usually taken the form of playing up the candidates’ conservative bonafides in either a positive or negative way—both of which could theoretically boost their name recognition and sway GOP voters toward them.

Here, things are a little different. Alaska voters in 2020 approved a system that sends the top four vote-getters in a nonpartisan primary to the November election and allows voters to pick the winner via rank-choice voting. GOP leaders in Alaska feel that the presence of multiple Republican candidates in the 2022 elections—the first time the state used the format—split the GOP vote and gave the longtime Republican seat to Democrats.

They have sought to avoid a similar situation this year, but it could happen if Peltola and three Republican candidates advance to the primary. Begich ran in that 2022 race against Peltola and former Gov. Sarah Palin, finishing third. He has vowed to drop out of the race if he finishes in the primary behind Dahlstrom, who holds endorsements from former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson and is on the National Republican Congressional Committee’s Young Guns List. Dahlstrom hasn’t made the same commitment to drop out that Begich has, but she has indicated she’ll reassess after the primary.

Heikes, meanwhile, told Dispatch Politics that he would not drop out of the race if he finishes behind Dahlstrom, citing her support for exceptions to abortion restrictions in cases of rape, incest, and those where the life of the mother is at risk. He also doubled down on his comments about Arabs, saying Muslim Americans, even some members of Congress, would kill Jewish or Christian Americans.

“I listen to them speak, especially the ones in Congress, like the Cori Bushes … and whatever, Rashida Tlaib,” he said. “Yeah, they’re ready to kill.” (Bush is not Muslim.)

The ads Vote Alaska Before Party has run against Dahlstrom and Begich have also focused on abortion, sometimes attacking all three at once. Jim Lottsfeldt, an Alaska political consultant who is listed by the FEC as the super PAC’s treasurer, did not respond to requests for comment, but he told Politico last week that he wanted “all Alaskans to know that all of the Peltola challengers” are against access to abortion.

Notable and Quotable

“Kamala Harris has done as many tough interviews as Tim Walz has battlefield deployments.”

—GOP vice presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance in an X post, August 11, 2024