Who’s ahead in the national polls?

The updated average for each candidate in 2024 presidential polls, accounting for each poll's recency, sample size, and methodology is at https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/

THE WEEK'S BEST QUOTES. . .

VIDEOS ...

4 Years of the Trump Presidency in 6 Minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2FNujc0UM4

Why Trump LOST the Last Election. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR3Z9-MmUSc

Teaser for a new video series "The Phantom of Mar-a-Lago," coming this summer. https://twitter.com/CHAPOTRAPHOUSE/status/1803166983300718795

“SILENCE OF THE LAMB:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08XZN0zjbbs

Jon Stewart Examines Biden’s Future Amidst Calls For Him to Drop Out | The Daily Show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9LZXheHddI

Trump’s Second Term: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYwqpx6lp_s

IN THIS ISSUE

IN THE NEWS

OPINION

The Borowitz Report: George Santos Urges Trump to Step Aside for Him

Arguing that age has dimmed Donald J. Trump’s ability to lie, former congressman George Santos proposed on Monday that he supplant the former president atop the GOP ticket.

“Over the course of his career, President Trump has produced an impressive array of falsehoods,” Santos said. “But now is the time to pass the torch to a new generation of liars.”

Santos said that, although Trump spewed a continuous stream of whoppers during his debate with President Biden, “From the earliest moments, it became worryingly obvious that he is no longer the liar he once was.”

“According to fact-checkers, Trump lied 30 times during the debate,” he said. “I could’ve done 60.”

Santos said he was “saddened” to issue his assessment of Trump’s decline, but added, “As a board-certified neurologist I had no choice.” https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/george-santos-urges-trump-to-step
 

Trump Leads In Every Swing State

A new Emerson College poll — conducted entirely after the presidential debate — shows Donald Trump leading Joe Biden is all six major swing states:

• Arizona: Trump 46%, Biden 42%
• Michigan: Trump 45%, Biden 44%
• Wisconsin: Trump 47%, Biden 44%
• Nevada: Trump 47%, Biden 41%
• Pennsylvania: Trump 48%, Biden 43%
• Georgia: Trump 47%, Biden 42%

The latest Emerson College poll was sponsored by Democrats for the Next Generation. A post-debate poll from Remington Research Group found similar results, placing Trump ahead in every swing state. https://www.realclearpolling.com/stories/analysis/post-debate-swing-state-polling-update
 

Clarence Thomas Took Free Yacht Trip to Russia

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been accused of not disclosing a yacht trip to Russia and a private helicopter flight to a palace in President Vladimir Putin’s hometown, among a slew of other gifts and loans from businessman Harlan Crow.

Buried on page 14 of a letter that two Democratic senators sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday, in which they urged Garland to appoint a special counsel to probe Thomas, was an astonishing list of dozens of ‘likely undisclosed gifts and income’ from Crow. https://www.thedailybeast.com/clarence-thomas-accepted-yacht-trip-to-russia-chopper-flight-to-putins-hometown-democrats
 

Video Forecasts Dystopian Future If Trump Wins

An ominous Lincoln Project video predicts mass chaos and arrests of Democratic politicians if Donald Trump wins the presidency.

Donald Trump’s plan for America is no secret. Beating Trump this November is the only mission. The Lincoln Project invites you to take a peek at the terrible future Donald Trump would impose on America. https://x.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1810342579659006356
 

Behind the Curtain: Trump's dream regime

Republicans long fantasized about a very different government: one run by a strong president indifferent to media pressure, empowered by a Republican Congress, backed by a conservative Supreme Court and lower court system, and free of administrative state handcuffs and hostile federal employees.

This dream — a true decades-long, unfolding nightmare for Democrats — is closer to reality than at any point in our lifetimes.

If Trump wins and congressional Republicans run the table, the other components for the most powerful White House in history are set firmly in place, and increasingly in law. https://www.axios.com/2024/07/08/trump-election-2024-dream-government

Experts Don’t Think Trump Can Get Conviction Overturned

Legal experts tell CBS News that are skeptical that Donald Trump’s 11th-hour effort to overturn his conviction in Manhattan on 34 felony counts will be successful. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-supreme-court-hush-money-case-new-york-conviction/

Trump Suggests Electric Powered Planes Can’t Fly When It’s Not Sunny

Battery and aviation experts were flummoxed by his recent assertions about electric aircraft, which are not yet in widespread use.

At a campaign rally in Virginia last week, former Donald Trump expressed concern that battery-powered airplanes wouldn’t fly in cloudy conditions. Trump apparently believes that batteries of the sort that could power airplanes would be dependent on solar energy. Aviation experts agree that no airplane would be, or could be, flown that relied solely on solar power to stay airborne.

In an extended, extemporaneous aside during a speech in which he falsely claimed that the U.S. inflation rate exceeds 30 percent (it stands at 3 percent), and falsely asserted that rioters in Portland, Oregon; Minneapolis; and Seattle had been “ripping people apart and killing people” after the murder of George Floyd, Trump said, of green-energy advocates, “All they know is electric. They want electric army tanks. They want electric planes.” Trump then looked up to the sky.

“What happens if the sun isn’t shining while you’re up in the air?”

“Well, sir,” he said, in the voice of (presumably) a Biden-administration battery expert, “those—I told you there’d be problems, sir.” https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/07/trump-battery-powered-planes-remarks/678868/
 

The terrifying SEAL Team 6 scenario lurking in the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling

As extraordinary as that prospect might sound, constitutional law experts say she’s right: The court’s decision in Trump v. United States really does appear to immunize a hypothetical president who directed the military to commit murder, though a president might be hard-pressed to find someone to carry out such an order.

“The crux of the issue, legal scholars said, is that the decision granted total immunity for any actions a president takes using the “core powers” that the Constitution bestows on the office. One such power is the authority to command the military.” https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/02/trump-immunity-murder-navy-sotomayor-00166385

 

Trump loyalists plan to name and shame ‘blacklist’ of federal workers

Armed with rhetoric about the ‘deep state’, a conservative-backed group is planning to publicly name and shame career government employees that they consider hostile to Donald Trump.

This ‘blacklist’ of civil servants, which will be published online, is intended to advance Trump’s broader goals, which, if elected, include weeding out government employees and replacing them with loyalists. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/30/trump-loyalists-deep-state-blacklist-american-accountability-foundation
 

Republicans Move to Make Sure Biden Is on the Ballot

Led by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, Republicans are currently looking to guarantee that Biden will be the Democratic nominee — and to make it so that, if Biden withdraws, it won’t be easy to replace him on ballots. While Biden’s campaign insists he has no plans to drop out, Republicans are gearing up for any and all possibilities. They’ve been preparing for this moment for quite some time.

About four months ago, after special counsel Robert Hur’s report raised more concerns about Biden’s health, staffers at Heritage’s Oversight Project started researching laws in states across the country for replacing a nominee. The memo identifies Wisconsin, Nevada and Georgia as attractive states for litigation to keep a new Democrat from replacing Biden on the ballot. https://www.notus.org/2024-election/biden-heritage-republicans

 

U.S. and Allies Issue Rare Warning on Chinese Hacking

The U.S. and six other allies warned that a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group poses a threat to their networks, in an unusual coordinated move by Western governments to call out a global hacking operation they say is directed by Beijing’s intelligence services.

Tuesday’s advisory was a rare instance of Washington’s major allies in the Pacific and elsewhere joining to sound the alarm on China’s cyber activity. Australia led and published the advisory. It was joined by the U.S., U.K., Canada and New Zealand, which along with Australia are part of an intelligence-sharing group of countries known as the Five Eyes. Germany, Japan and South Korea also signed on. https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/u-s-allies-issue-rare-warning-on-chinese-hacking-group-9eebb0ce
 

Russian Court Orders Arrest of Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s Widow

A Russian court on Tuesday ordered the arrest in absentia of Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Aleksei Navalny, who was a key figure in the country’s political opposition, accusing her of “participating in an extremist community. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/09/world/europe/russia-yulia-navalnaya-arrest-order.html\

Trump plans to block hearings in January 6 case before 2024 election

Donald Trump is expected to launch a new legal battle to suppress any damaging evidence from his 2020 election-subversion case from becoming public before the 2024 election, preparing to shut down the potency of any “mini-trials” where high-profile officials could testify against him. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/09/trump-january-6-witnesses-election

THE DAILY GRILL … 

“I know nothing about Project 2025,” the former president declared on Truth Social. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

VERSUS

Never mind that this is a demonstrably audacious lie: Project 2025 has enough ties to Trump that it might as well rent space at Mar-a-Lago. The point is that Trump rewarded Kevin Roberts, the Heritage Foundation’s president who launched Project 2025, by publicly disavowing him. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-07-09/donald-trump-republican-platform-heritage-foundation-project-2025-jonah-goldberg

Yale historian Timothy Snyder: How to Stop Fascism

Voting is the most important way to stop fascism in the United States.

Hitler came to power after an election which enabled his appointment as head of government.  It is much easier for fascists to begin from within than to begin from without.  Hitler’s earlier coup attempt failed.  But once he had legitimate power, inside the system as chancellor (prime minister), he could manipulate it from within.  In the American system, ‘voting’ means not just going to the polls yourself, but making donations, phone-banking, and knocking on doors.  We are still, happily, at the stage when unglamorous actions can make the difference.”

Also, coalitions are necessary. “In 1932, in the crucial German election, the far left and the center left were separated.  The reasons for this were very specific: Stalin ordered the German communists to oppose the German social democrats, thereby helping Hitler to power. To be sure, the American political spectrum is very different, as are the times.  Yet the general lesson does suggest itself: the left has to hold together with the the center-left, and their energies have to be directed at the goal rather than at each other.” https://snyder.substack.com/p/how-to-stop-fascism

Tom Nichols: The Double Standard in Trump-Biden Coverage

Critics of recent media coverage of Biden are dead right about one thing: Many outlets have for years been employing a significant double standard in covering Biden and his opponent, Donald Trump. When Biden stumbles over words, we question his state of mind; when Trump acts like a deranged street preacher, it’s … well, Tuesday. If Biden had suggested setting up migrants in a fight club, he’d be out of the race already; Trump does it, and the country (as well as many in the media) shrugs. Recognizing this inequity is the easy part, but here’s the harder realization: The double standard is a structural problem, it won’t change, and everyone in the prodemocracy coalition needs to grit their teeth and accept that reality.

The structural issue is that in an open society, almost all views may be expressed in the public square—even outright falsehoods. This principle of liberal democracy leaves Trump free to lie and propagandize, which he and his footmen do confidently and effortlessly. These tactics have been highly effective among a GOP base whose senses have been pounded into numbness by relentless propaganda, a daily barrage of Bullshit Artillery that leaves a smoking, pockmarked no-man’s-land in the mind of almost anyone subjected to it for long enough.

Media outlets cannot counter this by responding with a similar “truth barrage,” in part because there are simply not enough hours in the day. But it is also inaccurate to say that media outlets have not recently tried to cover Trump’s bizarre behavior. The NYU professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who regularly warns about Trump’s fascistic plans, posted in frustration yesterday that the top stories in several national publications were all about Biden, and not about “Trump and Epstein, Trump and Putin, Trump telling us to inject bleach, Trump wanting to deport up to 20 million.” https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/07/the-double-standard-in-trump-biden-coverage/678943/

Anne Applebaum: If Trump Wins He Will Abandon NATO

“I don’t give a shit about NATO.” Thus did former President Donald Trump once express his feelings about America’s oldest and strongest military alliance. Not that this statement, made in the presence of John Bolton, the national security adviser at the time, came as a surprise. Long before he was a political candidate, Trump questioned the value of American alliances. Of Europeans, he once wrote that “their conflicts are not worth American lives. Pulling back from Europe would save this country millions of dollars annually.” NATO, founded in 1949 and supported for three-quarters of a century by Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike, has long been a particular focus of Trump’s ire. As president, Trump threatened to withdraw from NATO many times—including, infamously, at the 2018 NATO summit.

But during Trump’s time in office, the withdrawal never happened. That was because someone was always there to talk him out of it. Bolton says he did; Jim Mattis, John Kelly, Rex Tillerson, Mike Pompeo, and even Mike Pence are thought to have done so too.

But they didn’t change his mind. And if Trump is reelected in 2024, none of those people will be in the White House. All of them have broken with the former president, in some cases dramatically, and there isn’t another pool of Republican analysts who understand Russia and Europe, because most of them either signed statements opposing him in 2016 or criticized him after 2020. In a second term, Trump would be surrounded by people who either share his dislike of American security alliances or don’t know anything about them and don’t care. This time, the ill will that Trump has always felt toward American allies would likely manifest itself in a clear policy change. “The damage he did in his first term was reparable,” Bolton told me. “The damage in the second term would be irreparable.” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/01/trump-2024-reelection-pull-out-of-nato-membership/676120/

Rex Huppke: ’A Nation in SERIOUS DECLINE': GOP platform is an unhinged all-caps list of Trump lies

Great news: The Republican Party is now officially just as weird and drunk-uncle-ish as Donald Trump, the convicted felon the party is rolling out as its presidential candidate/democracy saboteur.

On Monday, the Republican National Committee's platform committee adopted the strangest document ever created and declared it the party’s new official platform. It was less a serious expression of a party’s values and plans for governing and more a reminder that Republicans think actual policy proposals are for woke ninnies and American voters should just shut up and let billionaires control things.

The title of the document is: “2024 GOP PLATFORM MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Yes, there is punctuation – presumably a colon – missing from that title. And yes, there is an exclamation point at the end of that title, which should serve as a reminder that this is a wildly unserious political party.

But don’t worry, it gets far, far worse.

The preamble is replete with random capitalizations and other MAGA-inspired assaults on the English language. Take this line, for example: “But now we are a Nation in SERIOUS DECLINE.”

That “SERIOUS” foreshadows an all-caps 20-point list that makes up the party platform, letting the reader know that SERIOUS things are ALWAYS written in ALL CAPS to demonstrate their SERIOUSNESS. (Of note, the Republican Party abandons its evangelical base by not calling for a national abortion ban or defining marriage as being strictly between a man and a woman.)

The 20 "promises” that make up the “2024 GOP Platform to Make America Great Again!” begin with some good old-fashioned dangerous xenophobia and a promise to sweep across America and round up millions of immigrants:

    SEAL THE BORDER, AND STOP THE MIGRANT INVASION 
    CARRY OUT THE LARGEST DEPORTATION OPERATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY  

No. 3 is a simple “END INFLATION, AND MAKE AMERICA AFFORDABLE AGAIN,” which sparks the question: If y’all have some magic beans that will end inflation, why are you holding on to them?

Leave it to Trump's GOP to randomly capitalize words for no reason
The fourth promise includes an exclamation point, just to remind readers this is all very stupid: MAKE AMERICA THE DOMINANT ENERGY PRODUCER IN THE WORLD, BY FAR! 

There’s the usual anti-woke gibberish, like CANCEL THE ELECTRIC VEHICLE MANDATE and KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMEN’S SPORTS.

Democrats need to do more: Biden's attempt to save his campaign and presidency was too underwhelming for the moment

Otherwise, the actual platform of a party that thinks it should be trusted with governing is basically a bunch of randomly capitalized words – PREVENT WORLD WAR THREE, REBUILD OUR CITIES – generated, I assume, by an authoritarian-leaning artificial intelligence that was fed a Trump rally transcript.

What struck me most, though, was the absence of promises I’m sure Trump himself wanted to get in there. Stuff like CANCEL ALL FUTURE VOTING CUZ IT'S DUM and CUT FEDERAL FUNDING FOR ANY SCHOOL THAT DOES NOT TEACH STUDENTS THAT DONALD TRUMP WON THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AND IS THE BEST PRESIDENT OF ALL TIME.

What matters is that this sub-kindergarten gibberish is what Democrats are running against. Should they get around to deciding whether President Joe Biden is too old to be their nominee, they've got a decent chance of winning because a lot of Americans think stuff like "STOP THE MIGRANT INVASION" is fearmongering nonsense. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2024/07/09/trump-republican-party-platform-rnc-2024/74330024007/
 

Philip Bump: Democrats are justified in being freaked out about November

The polling averages from 538 indicate that the last time a Democrat was faring as poorly in national polling at this point in a race was 2000, when George W. Bush had a large lead over Al Gore. At every other equivalent point from 2004 to 2016, the Democrat was leading, by one to six percentage points. In 2020, 44Biden was up nearly 10 points on Trump. Now, he trails by two points.

At the state level, things don’t get much better. The relative paucity of state polling means that the averages compiled by 538 are derived to some extent from national polls. But across swing states — and even including Minnesota, which Biden won easily in 2020 — the race is tied, or (more often) Biden trails…

This is the sort of position that would normally prompt a campaign to engage in some dramatic change. That could be in the cards for Biden’s campaign, certainly — including the unusual possibility that Biden ultimately isn’t his party’s nominee. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/10/biden-polling-drop-out-bennet/
 

Nate Silver: Biden Has a Weak Hand

The problem is, the pitch is kind of a lie — and everyone knows it. Not the Trump part — he very much is some sort of chaos agent. But the Biden part. A steady hand? Absolutely nothing about Biden’s debate performance two weeks ago — and almost nothing that’s happened since then — suggests a president who’s in command of the situation. (I don’t mean to make light of the president’s situation, but Biden’s hands might literally be unsteady.) And I doubt even most Biden’s ardent supporters would bet on him completing another 4-year term until he’s 86.

Instead, the campaign is asking voters to make a risky bet: not a choice between Trump and Biden so much as one between the Blue Mystery Box and the Red Mystery Box. As Biden ages further, the White House will almost inevitably have to stage-manage his public appearances even more carefully and take more and more decisions off his plate. And then at some point between 2025 and 2028, they’ll probably seek to transition the presidency to Kamala Harris. This might go very poorly. Would Biden listen to his staff — or, as recent reporting suggests, does Hunter Biden have his ear instead? Who’s really in charge in the event of an international crisis? And if Biden isn’t willing to gracefully exit the stage now, who says he would later? https://www.natesilver.net/p/biden-has-a-weak-hand
 

Richard L. Hasen: Democrats Sure Aren’t Acting as if Trump Beating Biden Is an Existential Threat to Democracy

For all the talk from congressional Democrats about Donald Trump being an existential threat to democracy, they sure aren’t acting like it. That’s true in how they are handling the situation with President Joe Biden’s precarious reelection campaign, but the problem goes much deeper.

To hear leading Democrats tell it, Trump is a major threat to the future of democratic institutions in the United States. After the events of Jan. 6, 2021, during which Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, seeking to stop the peaceful transfer of power from Trump to Biden after the Democrat won the 2020 election, Democrats sounded the alarm. Then–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer issued a statement calling on Trump Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment and immediately remove Trump from office. Rep. Bennie Thompson, who later chaired the special congressional committee investigating the attempted election subversion, said, “Though it has been apparent for years, it is more clear than ever that President Trump is a direct threat to the homeland.” Democrats’ rhetoric against Trump has been apocalyptic and existential since that moment.

Joe Biden followed his worrisome debate performance, an appearance that raised questions about his mental competence, with scant activity to convince skeptical Americans that he has the mental stamina to do the job even now, much less to continue it for the next four and a half years.

A recent CBS poll showed that only 27 percent of people think Biden has the mental and cognitive health to serve as president, compared to 72 percent who think he does not. (A month ago, before the debate, the numbers were 35/65.) In swing-state polls, Biden is losing, and polls are moving in the wrong direction. Careful election analyst Dave Wasserman wrote on X: “The notion that the presidential is a Toss Up was a stretch even before the debate. Today, Trump has a clear advantage over Biden and a much more plausible path to 270 Electoral votes.” Dave Weigel notes that this is the first time in 24 years that a Republican is leading in polling averages after July 4. In July 2020, Biden was leading by 9 points. He ended up winning that race by exactly half that margin—a feat that raises further questions about his ability to overcome Trump’s growing lead.

Despite this, few congressional Democrats have spoken up to call on Biden to step aside now, before he is officially nominated, when it would be easy to have another Democrat’s name appear on the ballot. After the official nomination, state ballot access would be a huge mess. But who is to say how Biden will be doing physically and mentally in one, two, or three months? https://slate.com/author/richard-l-hasen