Harris Out on the Trail Ahead of VP Pick

From the The Morning Dispatch on The Dispatch

Happy Wednesday! We’re all for combating this country’s loneliness problem. But color us skeptical that this artificial intelligence “friend” you wear around your neck and is “always listening” is the way to do it.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Wednesday that the political head of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, had been assassinated in Tehran, where he attended Iran’s presidential inauguration ceremony. He was reportedly targeted in an airstrike, and though the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did not comment on the killing, Iran vowed “a harsh and painful response” to the assassination. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has sought to eliminate Hamas leaders in the prosecution of the war, said he would convene his security cabinet on Wednesday to discuss the increasingly fraught security situation in the region. “We don’t want war,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told IDF troops this morning, “but we are preparing for all possibilities.”

• Just hours earlier on Tuesday, the IDF launched an airstrike in the southern part of Beirut, Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah—the Iranian-backed terrorist organization headquartered in Lebanon—in retaliation for a rocket strike that killed 12 children in northern Israel on Saturday. A spokesman for the IDF claimed the strike had successfully eliminated a senior Hezbollah military commander, Fuad Shukr, who the IDF said had organized Saturday’s attack on Israel—and who was also wanted by the U.S. government “for the planning, coordination, and execution of terrorist attacks outside of Lebanon.”

• Both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris released new campaign advertisements on Tuesday as the campaigns seek to appeal to voters in the wake of President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race. “This campaign is about who we fight for. We believe in a future where every person has the opportunity, not just to get by, but to get ahead,” Harris said in her campaign’s new 60-second ad. “But Donald Trump wants to take our country backward … but we are not going back.” Meanwhile, the Trump campaign framed the presumptive Democratic nominee as weak on issues of immigration, the fentanyl crisis, and terrorist threats. “This is America’s border czar—and she’s failed us,” the narrator said in the Trump campaign’s new 30-second ad. “Kamala Harris: Failed. Weak. Dangerously liberal.”

• FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Judiciary Committees on Tuesday, telling senators that the agency may have discovered social media posts and comments from between 2019 and 2020 made by the gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump on July 13. “Some of these comments, if ultimately attributable to the shooter, appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature,” Abbate said. Ronald Rowe, the new acting Secret Service director, also testified during the hearing, telling lawmakers he was “ashamed” of the security lapse in Pennsylvania earlier in the month while also shifting blame to local law enforcement. “We assumed that the state and locals had it,” Rowe said. “I can assure you that we’re not going to make that mistake again.”

• The U.S. on Tuesday announced new sanctions on five individuals and seven groups—from China, Iran, and Hong Kong—for contributing components used in Iran’s missile and drone program. The sanctioned behavior includes business transactions with Iran that provided the country with accelerometers and gyroscopes—key components used for missile and drone guidance and navigation, according to the Treasury Department. “Iran’s reckless proliferation of its ballistic missiles and [drones] risks further instability and endangers civilian lives, both in the region and around the world,” said Brian Nelson, a senior official at the Treasury Department. “Today’s action exposes additional key front companies and trusted agents through which Iran has sought to acquire these components.”

• U.S. officials said on Tuesday that America would deliver $500 million in defense aid to the Philippines as the Southeast Asian nation looks to modernize its military and defend against increased Chinese provocations in the South China Sea. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the move in Manila in a joint statement with their Filipino counterparts. The U.S. and the Philippines hope a strengthened Filipino military will deter China from asserting control of the country’s territorial waters after months of rising tensions and direct confrontation between the two Asian countries.

• The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the U.S. will arm dozens of Ukraine-bound F-16 fighter jets with American missiles and bombs. Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Norway are sending the U.S.-made planes, which will arrive later this summer, and the Pentagon’s move would ease concerns the jets would not come equipped with adequate weaponry as Ukraine looks to turn the war in its favor after more than a year of few territorial gains.

• The Senate voted 91-3 on Tuesday to pass two pieces of legislation that would institute additional online safety and privacy measures in an effort to protect children on the internet. Proposed in 2022, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) would make tech companies responsible for reducing content deemed potentially harmful to kids on their platforms. The other bill, an updated version of the previously approved Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0), would raise the age requirement for parental consent on data collection from 12 to 16. The bills’ status in the House is unclear, however, with lawmakers on their summer recess until mid-September and relevant committee leaders split on how to approach such legislation.

• Olympic officials in Paris postponed the Games’ men’s triathlon originally scheduled for Tuesday due to unsafe pollution levels in the Seine river—the venue for the triathlon’s swimming portion—after days of heavy rain. Organizers rescheduled the event to Wednesday, with both men’s and women’s competitors taking to the water this morning. Meanwhile, the U.S. women’s gymnastics team—led by decorated gymnast Simone Biles—won the gold medal in the Olympic team competition on Tuesday, finishing ahead of Italy and Brazil, which took the silver and bronze medals, respectively.

Harris Rides Wave of Democratic Enthusiasm 

AMBLER, Pennsylvania—Concerned. Worried. Sad. Frustrated. Mildly depressed. That’s how Democratic supporters at a rally in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, on Monday described their feelings about the election with President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket.

But then he withdrew from the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who quickly coalesced Democratic support for the nomination in a matter of hours. That changed everything for the voters in attendance on Monday.

“It really changed my total attitude,” Norma Villanueva told TMD. The 84-year-old former emergency room physician said she wasn’t planning to attend any Biden rallies, but the switch at the top of the ticket gave her “a whole lot of energy.”

Michelle Kearns, a real estate agent who recently moved to the area from Pittsburgh, explained that she was concerned about Biden’s chances but is “definitely more optimistic” with Harris. “I think we’re on pace now,” she said.

More than 1,000 supporters crowded into the Wissahickon High School gymnasium on Monday afternoon to hear Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro make the case for a Harris presidency—and at least for Shapiro, continue to audition to be the vice president’s running mate. “There’s a lot of enthusiasm,” Joe Jennings, a rally attendee and Republican voter until the 2016 election, told TMD. “I just wanted to be a part of it.”

“I was very worried,” he added. “Now, I’m very excited.”

Harris is no doubt looking to take advantage of the surge in Democratic enthusiasm that has begun to register in some early polling gains. But as she hunts for a running mate who ticks all the right boxes, it remains to be seen whether the campaign can turn the boost into sustainable momentum sufficient to stave off former President Donald Trump’s desired return to the White House.

The Harris campaign is currently knee-deep in a lightning-fast vetting process for its vice presidential pick—a process that typically takes months but will be compacted into just a few days since the campaign has to select a candidate by August 7, when Democratic delegates will complete a virtual roll call vote on the nominee ahead of their August 19 national convention.

While vice presidential picks typically don’t alter the outcome of a race, campaigns look for running mates that can balance the ticket and help shore up a principal’s potential weaknesses. The shortlist of contenders has largely fit that bill in one form or another. Shapiro, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz all appear to be under consideration. Walz, in particular, has emerged as a potential dark horse candidate, viewed as able to appeal to voters in Rust Belt swing states.

The vice president said Tuesday that she hasn’t settled on a running mate yet, but the campaign is reportedly planning to hold a rally in Philadelphia next Tuesday where she will announce her running mate and kick off a battleground state campaign tour. There was plenty of speculation last night about the Philadelphia event portending well for Shapiro’s chances, but a campaign aide told Politico not to read too much into the first destination in the whirlwind tour.

The veep speculation is naturally overshadowing significant behind-the-scenes changes as the Biden campaign became Harris’ show. Today marks just the eleventh day of the burgeoning Harris presidential campaign, and the operation is still getting up to speed. She has inherited Biden’s campaign infrastructure, keeping campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon on, but has yet to make any senior-level hires of her own—though Axios reported Tuesday that the campaign is preparing to bring on Brian Nelson, a Treasury Department under-secretary who worked with Harris when she was California’s attorney general. The campaign also plans to hire hundreds of new staffers in battleground states over the next few weeks.

The fundraising and ad operations appear to have transitioned relatively seamlessly. The Harris campaign said it raised $200 million in the first week after Biden dropped out, two-thirds of which came from first-time donors this cycle. On Tuesday, Harris launched a $50 million TV ad campaign leading up to the convention next month that followed a potentially record-setting $28.6 million in digital ad spends over the last week.

Harris’ campaign launch video centered on the theme of “freedom”—and is set to Beyoncé’s “Freedom”—which represents a marked update to the Biden campaign’s previous framing of the election as being about Trump’s “threat to democracy.” The campaign’s first TV ad portrays Harris as a fighter able to protect what it describes as the Biden administration’s policy wins, particularly on health care, and features one of the contenders for an unofficial campaign slogan: “We’re not going back.”

Despite being run by the same people, the campaign’s communications strategy has also taken on a jauntier—and dare we say, younger—tone, embracing online meme culture and trying out new angles of attack that Biden seemed unable to execute. The latest line is labeling Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, as “just plain weird.”

Likewise, at rallies in Wisconsin last week and Atlanta last night, Harris seemed to enjoy mocking her opponent as she sketched the outline of what is quickly becoming her stump speech. In Milwaukee, Harris leaned on her background as a prosecutor. “I know Donald Trump’s type,” she said. She also painted a contrast in potential futures for the country: “This campaign is also about two different visions for our nation: one where we are focused on the future, the other focused on the past,” she argued, asking her supporters, “Do we want to live in a country of freedom, compassion, and rule of law, or a country of chaos, fear, and hate?” She repeated some of those same lines at a raucous rally in Atlanta last night, where our own Mike Warren was on the scene to witness the energy as the crowd was treated to warm-up performances by rappers Quavo and Megan Thee Stallion.

Whether it’s related to Harris’ pitch in particular or general excitement about the change at the top of the ticket, Democrats have seen a polling bump in recent days. Biden was trailing Trump by several points nationally when he dropped out, but the race between Harris and Trump now seems to be in a dead heat: Though his model still gives Trump a significant edge in the Electoral College, polling guru Nate Silver’s national polling average currently has the race at 44.5 percent for Trump and 44.1 percent for Harris. Our own Chris Stirewalt’s Statshot from Saturday (🔒) showed an even closer margin—Trump, 42.2 percent, Harris, 42. The vice president has also seen her favorability rating improve, with an ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday showing 43 percent of respondents viewed her favorably, up from 35 percent in a similar poll conducted just one week earlier.

Even more crucially, some surveys now show Harris arresting Trump’s lead in several of the seven battleground states that will likely decide the winner in November. According to a Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll published Tuesday, Harris leads Trump by 2 points in Nevada, Arizona, and Wisconsin—all within the margin of error—and a whopping 11 points in Michigan. The two candidates were tied in Georgia, and Trump led by 4 points in the must-win state of Pennsylvania and by 2 points in North Carolina.

Though the Trump campaign seemed at first to be caught flat-footed trying to retrofit a strategy that was designed to beat Biden, it’s now beginning to hit Harris on immigration—one of her issue areas as vice president. A Trump ad released Tuesday portrayed the vice president as a “dangerously liberal” candidate responsible for the large numbers of migrants crossing the southern and the flow of fentanyl into the country, contributing to hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths.

In return, the Harris campaign released a spot trying to flip the script on the border, knocking Trump on his opposition to the bipartisan border security package that floundered earlier this year after Senate Republicans pulled their support at Trump’s urging. “As president, I will bring back the border security bill that Donald Trump killed,” Harris told supporters at a rally in Atlanta last night. “I will sign it into law, and show Donald Trump what real leadership looks like.”

Still, the vice president’s 2020 presidential bid and her record as a senator from California could provide plenty of fodder for Republican attacks, which will likely focus on her previous support for banning fracking, a mandatory buyback program for certain types of guns, and Medicare for All—all positions the Harris campaign has walked back in recent days. David McCormick, the Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, released an ad earlier this week that aired clips of Harris espousing progressive positions. “We will run out of time before we run out of video clips of Kamala Harris saying wacky California liberal things,” said Brad Todd, a Republican strategist and ad maker who is working with McCormick’s campaign.

Harris will likely be on the hunt for a VP candidate who can ably rebut those attacks—or at least reassure voters there’s a moderate in the car with her. Unsurprisingly, Shapiro—who boasts a 64 percent job approval rating—was a favorite among the hometown crowd at the Monday rally, delivering one applause line after another in his remarks. “Some of our Republican friends really know that Shapiro has done a great job,” Jane Curtis, a retired teacher, told TMD. “I think he’ll bring more moderate people to the ticket.” Kearns, the real estate agent, is excited about the bench of contenders. “I don’t think we can go wrong,” she said. “But coming out of here today, I feel like I’d like to see Shapiro on the ticket.”

Venezuelans Protest Maduro’s Power Grab

In the days since Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro declared an unlikely victory in Sunday’s presidential election contest, Venezuelans have taken to the streets, descending on the capital city of Caracas, some carrying the long pieces of paper they say will prove Maduro stole the election: the voting records.

Sixteen people have been killed in clashes between law enforcement and protesters. Days after the vote, the country’s citizens are seeing little clarity and much consternation at home and abroad about the outcome.

Maduro, who is seeking a third, six-year term after more than a decade leading the socialist government, declared victory, with the Maduro-controlled National Electoral Council announcing he won 51 percent of the vote against the opposition candidate, former diplomat Edmundo González. That figure starkly contradicts exit polling conducted by U.S.-based Edison Research that had González winning 65 percent of the vote to Maduro’s 31 percent. The opposition has pointed to data gathered by their representatives at 40 percent of the country’s ballot boxes to claim that González is the rightful and “overwhelming” victor.

Outside observers are pressing the National Electoral Council for vote tallies from individual precincts to verify the election results, but many had long expected Maduro to fraudulently declare himself the victor no matter the results. “They are not even going to bother changing the ballots. They will just announce a different number, a different result,” said Daniel Di Martino, a Venezuelan living in exile in the United States who founded the Dissident Project, connecting speakers who fled autocratic regimes with high U.S. high schools.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. has “serious concerns” that the official result is inaccurate, echoing the sentiments of many other Latin American leaders, including Argentina’s Javier Milei, Chilean President Gabriel Boric, and Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino, who announced his country was severing diplomatic relations with Venezuela in the aftermath of the election. Meanwhile, Venezuela’s friendly neighborhood leftist regimes in Cuba and Nicaragua—as well as autocrats further afield in Russia and China—have all recognized Maduro as the victor.

Maduro and his lackeys had laid the groundwork for a disputed outcome even before voting began; the Venezuelan leader has experience with rigging elections. Banning opposition candidates, intimidating voters at the polls, and censoring the media are all typical features of “democracy” under chavismo—the brand of socialism associated with Hugo Chavez and his successor, Maduro—and were a factor once again on Sunday.

In January, for example, Venezuela’s Maduro-controlled high court barred María Corina Machado—who won more than 90 percent of the vote in the opposition primary—from standing in Sunday’s general election. Still, Machado continues to be a powerful voice, throwing her full support behind González, who replaced her on the ballot, and rallying her supporters to vote for him.

There were, however, few outside observers to check Maduro’s anti-democratic efforts. Venezuela revoked an EU mission’s ability to supervise the election, while Brazil declined to send observers north to Venezuela in the wake of disparaging comments Maduro made about Brazil’s previous election. Observers from the U.S.-based Carter Center were present in Venezuela, but only in a limited capacity.

In spite of the threats and the fraud, millions of Venezuelans showed up to their polling places to cast their ballots, a sharp departure from the historically low turnout of the last general election.

But for Venezuelans living abroad, millions of whom have fled the country during Maduro’s 11 years as president, onerous regulations prevent them from exercising their voting rights. More than 7.5 million Venezuelans—about 20 percent of the country’s population—live outside of the country, with an estimated 2,000 Venezuelans joining this growing diaspora every day. When they are allowed to participate, they can be a hugely influential force in the country’s politics. In this year’s primary elections, Venezuelan expatriates had a turnout almost three times higher than the national average.

But in the interim between the primary and general elections, the Maduro-controlled electoral council instituted policies ensuring that Venezuelans abroad were no longer able to have a real voice in the country’s future. The council built a wall of bureaucracy to exclude Venezuelans in Colombia, where more than a million Venezuelans reside, as well as in the U.S. and Canada, neither of which have a Venezuelan consulate or embassy. In countries that did have a consulate or embassy where Venezuelans could go to vote, the Maduro regime made it almost impossible for expats to register, functionally disenfranchising almost all of the Venezuelans abroad.

González and his allies made the diaspora a central feature of the campaign. “One of the opposition’s most powerful … messages was the family reunification,” Henry Ziemer, a research associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told TMD. “They did some really moving advertisements on social media and on television showing the desire to come back among Venezuelans and how many families had been split because of the overlapping humanitarian, economic, security crises that are affecting Venezuela.”

Millions more Venezuelans will likely attempt to leave the country in light of Maduro’s “victory” this weekend. According to the latest polls from the country, between 13 and 41 percent of Venezuelans say they would leave the country if Maduro stayed in power. “We’re talking about huge numbers of people … going to start leaving the country beginning next week,” Di Martino told TMD. “How many people have starved? How many people have not been able to get treatment for cancer? Been malnourished? The United Nations estimated there are 7 million malnourished people inside Venezuela.”

The threat of a new wave of migration has shaped responses to the weekend’s election result. Much of what happens next will hinge on the response to Maduro’s efforts to hold onto power by the U.S. and regional governments. “Panama has come down very harshly against Maduro,” Ziemer told TMD. “Panama is facing sort of the brunt of this new wave of migration through the Darién Gap, where previously a lot of Venezuelan migration was diffused throughout South America. … Governments are stretched to a breaking point in many cases, and another wave of migration is not in the best interests of any of the regional governments to try and handle.”

The United States, which has seen hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans cross its border with Mexico in recent years, has multiple avenues for putting pressure on the Maduro regime. For his part, Ziemer is hopeful American officials will keep “hammering home this narrative that we see of massive fraud.”

Indeed, some U.S. officials may feel misled by the Maduro government’s promises of a year ago. In October 2023, the Biden administration, along with the EU, agreed to ease sanctions on Venezuela in exchange for Maduro facilitating a free and fair election. While the Biden administration had once again tightened sanctions following the high court’s April decision to bar Machado from running, Republicans have called on the Biden administration to fully reinstate those sanctions and more following Sunday’s results.

“The United States stands on the side of the democratic aspirations of the Venezuela people,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement on Tuesday. Ultimately, time will tell if these are empty words or a sign that Biden will begin to lead on the issue. “They own it,” Carlos Trujillo, former U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States, told Politico, referring to the Biden administration. “We can’t wait for Colombia and Brazil to dictate our foreign policy.”

Worth Your Time

• How is the U.S. national debt looking? Just scroll through this shocking graph in Reason magazine for the answer. “Paradoxically, the faster government debt escalates toward an inevitable debt crisis, the less politicians and voters seem to care,” Brian Riedl wrote. “In the 1980s and 1990s, more modest deficits dominated economic policy debates and prompted six major deficit reduction deals that balanced the budget from 1998 through 2001. That era is long gone. In the past eight years, President Donald Trump and then Biden enacted $12 trillion in deficit-expanding legislation even as Social Security and Medicare shortfalls drove baseline deficits higher. … In the 1980s and ‘90s, lawmakers could tweak their way to deficit reduction. Nearly half of federal spending was discretionary, and the Cold War victory brought vast military savings that minimized the need for austerity elsewhere. … The political payoff of a balanced budget was worth these modest reforms. Today’s deficits of $2 trillion—headed toward $3 trillion or even $4 trillion—cannot be tweaked away. Balancing the budget is virtually impossible, and even stabilizing the long-term debt at today’s 100 percent of GDP requires wildly unpopular changes to Social Security and Medicare (and will likely take broad-based taxes). Other reforms are necessary but far from sufficient.”

Presented Without Comment

New York Times: Lara Trump Compares Harris to a Fashion Designer’s Faux ‘Trash Bag’

Also Presented Without Comment 

Fox News: Project 2025 Leader Steps Down Amid Criticism From Trump

In the (Olympic) Zeitgeist

Watch the last two minutes of the U.S. women’s rugby sevens bronze medal match against Australia and revel in that extra hardware in today’s medal counter:

Toeing the Company Line

• Who’s the most intimidating member of The Dispatch staff? What was the defining news event of the interns’ lifetime? What is it like being an intern at The Dispatch? Interns Leah, Cole, Grant, Max, and Aayush joined Michael and Wendy to discuss all that and more on Dispatch Live (🔒). Members who missed the conversation can catch a rerun—either video or audio-only—by clicking here.

• In the newsletters: Nick dove into (🔒) Harris’ recent flip-flopping on a number of key issues.

• On the podcasts: Jonah is joined on The Remnant by Will Inboden, the director of the Alexander Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida, to discuss higher education reform and foreign policy.

• On the site: Keith Whittington wonders where the principle of judicial independence factors into Biden’s proposed court reforms, Kevin argues “debanking” is a tax on dissent and a bad precedent, and Jonah marvels at Trump’s ability to make even good ideas unpopular.

Let Us Know

Do you think the early enthusiasm the Harris campaign has been able to generate will be sustainable?

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