The (no longer) much too early 2024 election thread

[N.E. Brigand]

Bloomberg reports on Republican plans to raise the age of Social Security eligibility.

More reporting on this from NBC.

The Republicans' budget would both "eliminate the ACA's prohibition on premium surcharges for pre-existing conditions" and "repeal government negotiation of drug prices."

[N.E. Brigand]

In February, President Biden's campaign raised $53 million and ended the month with $155 million cash on hand.

In February, Donald Trump's campaign raised $11 million and ended the month with $34 million cash on hand.

We don't know how the various PACs supporting Biden or Trump stand, so that's not the full picture. But it is pretty striking nonetheless.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I guess he isn't Little Marco anymore.

Trump eyes Sen. Marco Rubio as a potential VP pick

[N.E. Brigand]

Stories like this one in the Indpendent get under my skin: "I’m a Democrat. This is why I’d rather vote for Trump than for Biden."

The author says, "this election is not about what Joe Biden can do to earn my vote in November. It is about what he has already done to lose it."

But she didn't vote for Biden in 2020, either: she wrote in Bernie Sanders's name that November "based on how passionately I felt about issues such as housing, education, labour, healthcare and women's rights." So Biden isn't losing her vote this time around.

For what it's worth, she says her driving issue this time is Israel's response to Gaza ("there has been no greater evil worldwide"), for which she squarely blames Biden. She knows that Donald Trump espoused racist views toward Muslims and instituted a "four years of a Muslim travel ban" (I agree with her that's what Trump did, although of course Republicans and the courts didn't accept that) and that he would almost certainly do so again and even that Trump may not do anything to help Palestinians, but "he couldn't be worse ... we must ensure that we ... punish someone who has betrayed us ... someone who, I believe, has actively funded a genocide."

Never mind that from the start, President Biden and other U.S. Democrats called on Israel to respond proportionately to Hamas's evil attack, that Biden specifically noted that there were lessons to be learned from the U.S.'s decades-long response to 9/11, that Republicans have accused Biden of being on Hamas's side and of causing the attack by releasing funds to Iran, that Chuck Schumer called Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to stand aside, that Senate Republicans held a private remote interview with Netanyahu, yesterday, that Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is inviting Netanyahu to speak to a joint session of Congress, something Netanyahu has done three times before (in 1996, 2011, and 2015), and that on each occasion, the House was controlled by Republicans, that Trump took the controversial and provocative step of moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, that Trump recently said that Israel was too soft on Hamas, or that Trump's son-in-law is talking about moving Palestinians out of Gaza so that it can be developed into luxury housing.

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I don't have a link, but I saw a CNN interview last night with a self-described undocumented Mexican immigrant who of course can't vote but who supports Donald Trump because Trump is a nationalist, and this man feels that love of country is a good thing; he also feels Democrats mismanage the economy (an insane position held by many). Yes, he wishes Trump would drop the racist rhetoric. And what about the threat that Trump will have him deported? He thinks it's all bluster and won't come to pass. Never mind that Texas just yesterday was poised to begin enforcing just such a law.

(Despite having two children born in the U.S., he was not asked about Trump's plans to end birthright citizenship.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Trump may well be no better on Palestinian and Muslim issues – but he couldn’t be worse.

He will be a lot worse. A lot.

[N.E. Brigand]

For the first time since September, the Economist polling average has President Biden leading Donald Trump (barely). However, (1) that's nationally not in swing states (i.e., Biden would lose in the Electoral College), (2) other averages don't show that, and (3) so much can happen over the next 7 months.

[N.E. Brigand]

I guess he isn't Little Marco anymore.Trump eyes Sen. Marco Rubio as a potential VP pick

I believe that was "Liddle": Trump was at pains to emphasize it should be spelled with Ds not Ts. Anyway, as noted in that article, Marco Rubio would have to move out of Florida (and therefore resign from the Senate) to join a Trump-topped ticket, because the president and vice president can't be from the same state.

(Strictly speaking, the Constitution says that electors can't vote for both a president and vice president from their own state. And there's no way Donald Trump wins the election without winning Florida.)

[N.E. Brigand]

This was just an insane response by Donald Trump -- four years ago yesterday -- to such an easy question:



The "terrible reporter" was lobbing you one you could knock out of the park! Just say something sympathetic and reassuring to the public!

[N.E. Brigand]

Adam Schiff ended up in first place in the California Senate race, with Steve Garvey in second.

"California Republican Steve Garvey owes at least $350,000 in back taxes."

[N.E. Brigand]

Republicans seem to have convinced themselves that Donald Trump never suggested in 2020 that injecting disinfectant into people's bodies might be a way to stop Covid, but he really did: "And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Cause you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number in the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you`re going to have to use medical doctors, but it sounds interesting to me."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Dark Brandon has a sense of humor

[Sunsilver]

I'm sure Biden (or whoever posted that for Biden) knows (as most of us do) that Trump cheats at golf!

As Michael Cohen puts it in his book about Trump: "to say that Trump was economical with the truth about his golf game would be the polite way to put it."

[RoseMorninStar]

I wonder if his name is pre-engraved on the trophies.

eta: Trump 'wins' in the same way Putin 'wins' his elections.

[N.E. Brigand]

To be fair, the story was that Kanye West surprised Donald Trump by bringing Nick Fuentes to dinner. I'm sure that Trump doesn't plan to execute his older daughter, her husband, and their children. But while the bulk of Fuentes's ire here is aimed at supposed practitioners of witchcraft, he does specifically call out "atheists" and "perfidious Jews":



And really, if the death penalty is to be imposed on all non-Christians, Trump would have to order his own execution.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

RFK, Jr. has named Nicolle Shanahan has his VP pick. Shanahan has one credential for the job; she is rich and therefore will be able to help him pay for getting on as many state's ballots as possible. They have no chance of winning, but they could very easily facilitate a Trump victory.

[N.E. Brigand]

American Values 2024, a political action committee supporting the candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., aired an ad during the Super Bowl for which RFK Jr. is now apologizing (if it "caused anyone in my family pain") -- and yet it's still pinned to his social media profiles.

The ad is a 1960 John F. Kennedy commercial with RFK Jr's face superimposed where JFK's face had been at the time.

Edited to add this reminder that JFK, unlike his nephew, was very much in favor of mass vaccination. (I didn't know that polio, like the flu, had a "season.")

As you may recall, a pro-RFK PAC ran a controversial but much-seen RFK Jr. ad during this year's Super Bowl. The ad was denounced by various members of the Kennedy family and then sort of disowned by RFK Jr. himself.

The ad was paid for by Nicole Shanahan, a multimillionaire lawyer, entrepreneur and activist who is perhaps best known for having been married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin from 2018 to 2023. The Wall Street Journal reported last year that their split followed Shanahan having an affair with Elon Musk. Shanahan and Musk deny that story, which the WSJ stands by, and I hesitated to include that sort of personal information here, but it doesn't seem right nowadays to omit a possible connection to Musk from a political story.

Today RFK Jr. announced that Shanahan is his vice-presidential running mate.

(Edited to note that V got the story first!)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I had forgotten that Shanahan was behind that ad.

[N.E. Brigand]

Donald Trump is now a Bible salesman. And it's a weird Bible.

[N.E. Brigand]

RFK, Jr. has named Nicolle Shanahan has his VP pick. Shanahan has one credential for the job; she is rich and therefore will be able to help him pay for getting on as many state's ballots as possible. They have no chance of winning, but they could very easily facilitate a Trump victory.

RKF Jr. mucked up the VP announcement by talking so long that Shanahan herself didn't appear on the news coverage.

[N.E. Brigand]

Earlier today, Donald Trump suggested that Ronna [Romney] McDaniel might need to be replaced as chair of the Republican National Committee. Given the RNC's poor electoral track record (compared to expectations) since McDaniel was named to that role in 2017, not to mention the reportedly terrible fundraising in 2023, that's not so surprising. But it does get me thinking that we still don't have a full picture of how much McDaniel was involved in Jan. 6th.

Donald Trump said this more explicitly in a different interview Monday, and now multiple outlets are reporting that "Ronna McDaniel, R.N.C. Chairwoman, Plans to Step Down."

On Friday, NBC announced that recently departed RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel (who infamously dropped her last name Romney to get the job in 2017 because Donald Trump hates her uncle Mitt Romney) would be joining the network and its sister cable news station MSNBC as a political commentator. On Saturday, MSNBC announced that McDaniel would not be a contributor to its programs. On Sunday morning, McDaniel was interviewed on NBC's long-running Meet the Press program by host Kristen Welker. Following that, Welker interviewed Chuck Todd, who himself hosted Meet the Press from 2014 through last year and now is a senior correspondent for NBC. Todd is thought by many to be a rather spineless centrist, but he excoriated NBC during Sunday's interview and told Welker that "our bosses" put her in a terrible position by requiring her to have McDaniel on. On Monday's Morning Joe broadcast, hosts Joe Scarborough (a former Republican congressman) and Mika Brzezinski strongly criticized the network for hiring McDaniel. Other MSNBC hosts did likewise over the course of the day, culminating in long segments by primetime anchors Rachel Maddow (who framed her points with a history of how the media supported fascist politicians in the 1930s), Lawrence O'Donnell, and Stephanie Ruhle. The repeated theme of all this commentary was that McDaniel was not merely a political operative -- such people move into journalism pretty regularly -- but had assisted Donald Trump in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Today NBC is reportedly planning to buy out McDaniel's $300,000 contract and show her the door, and McDaniel said to be strategizing with her lawyers. This was all so avoidable, but now McDaniel will get to play the martyr on the right.