Last week, Karl Rove joined us to talk about the debate, the election, and the political parties. You can listen to the excellent convo with him here. You can read the highlights below. Suffice it to say, that Donald Trump did not take Karl’s wise counsel.
In my somewhat short tradition of lukewarm takes — sometimes it’s wise to sleep on an undigestible meal; and if ever there was a disastrous plate of political stew, the Trump-Harris ABC debate was it. Choose your favored epithet: Ugh. Oy vey. Gaaaaaah. Or, if you’re a Democrat, woo-bloody-hoo.
Better political analysts than I have already told you last night was a hot mess of Trumpian kindergarten behavior — bait-taking, gobbledygook uttering, conspiracy-theorizing rubbish. Were there moments? Yep, there were some moments when Trump delivered, whether on the economy or… well, I’m sure there was another. By the middle, I was on my third glass of wine. So let’s talk about Kamala.
Marc and I did a quickie WTH extra podcast (it’ll be here at 5 EDT today), and though Marc is more inclined to be kind to DJT than I, we both agreed that Kamala knocked it out of the park. Let me bat back your ripostes in advance:
The moderators were with her.
You bet they were, about which, more below. That should not have been a surprise to anyone with a TV and a brain. Be ready.
She said she would explain all of her flip-flops, and didn’t.
Why would she? No one made her, least of all Donald Trump (and yes, the moderators.)
She lied about U.S. troops being in combat, about crime, about not wanting to take away your guns, and a lot, lot, more.
So? Debates are sales events. The candidates often exaggerate, obfuscate, and lie. Is that lamentable? Sure. The job of the opposition is to call her on it AT THE TIME. Donald Trump missed every chance.
She didn’t explain how she was different from Biden.
That’s right, and lucky her, no one made her.
There’s more, but you get the main theme here: She did her homework, and Donald Trump didn’t. She was coherent, and Donald Trump wasn’t. She was on attack, and Donald Trump was on defense. She didn’t get distracted, and Donald Trump talked about Haitians eating cats.
I have no clue where this version of Kamala was for the last three years, and I’m not going to be persuaded she’s not a far-left twit by one good debate performance. But that doesn’t matter. She had one job last night, and she did it. Donald Trump had one job, and frankly, it would have been better had he been replaced by an empty chair.
For those of you who want to label me a never-Trumper, go ahead. But that’s not what’s motivating this piece. I don’t believe in the things that mountains of evidence suggest Kamala Harris believes in. I think she’ll be an abominable and dangerous president. And I’d love to have a GOP candidate who could actually sit down for a few hours with a normal human being — not Matt Gaetz — and practice for one of the more important events of his year.
Does it matter? I’ve become a big fan of Nate Silver. He’s an honest guy, tells you upfront what he believes in, and says plenty of things that ought to be said about our candidates and our political system. Last night, he concluded his somewhat more hot take than mine with these words:
In closing, Harris got the debate she wanted. If she isn’t able to move the needle in the polls at least a little bit, maybe that means the country just isn’t buying what she’s selling.
I think that’s right. I’m not interested in the they-are-eating-cats side of debate spin today. Fundamentally, we know who Donald Trump is, and we are used to ignoring his gibbering because it’s hard to beat a good economy, Putin in his box, Iran under maximum pressure sanctions, etc. Don’t correct me with the bad Trump things. I know them all too well, and so do most Americans. Will DJT2 be different, worse, weirder, more dangerous? It may well be that the American people are willing to take that risk. Here’s why 👇
Kamala Harris is smoother and glibber than Donald Trump; she’s younger, she’s more chipper, and she’s more presentable. What she isn’t is a moderate: Harris has expressed support for:
“decriminalizing federal drug possession for personal use, and for sweeping reductions to Immigration and Custom Enforcement operations, including drastic cuts in ICE funding and an open-ended pledge to ‘end’ immigration detention […]
“a ‘third gender’ [on] federal identification cards[,] increase oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities, slash detention by at least 50%, and halt funding for the construction or expansion of new facilities.”
using “executive authority to ensure that transgender and non-binary people who rely on the state for medical care – including those in prison and immigration detention – will have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care.”
“the decriminalization of all drug possession for personal use,”
Then there are the price controls, higher taxes, insane federal spending, and nationalized health care priorities she has embraced on the record, not to speak of her meetings with pro-Hamas “uncommitted” voters, the Biden administration’s own slow-rolling of aid to Ukraine and Israel, the deprioritization of national defense and more.
Every one of these issues was an opportunity for Trump to stand up to Kamala Harris, hold her feet to the fire, question her dishonesty about Joe Biden’s health, and otherwise, er, be a good debater. He wasn’t. Ironically, the rap on Harris is that she’s not terribly bright, and overwhelmingly lazy. Maybe that’s true, but it was Trump who didn’t do his homework or polish his rhetoric last night, not the VP.
Debates aren’t all that unless your candidate appears dead, shoots himself in the foot (John Kerry), or the other guy is just amazing (sigh, Ronald Reagan). Kamala wasn’t amazing, but she was solid. Will that be enough to win the election? It will help.
PS I have never seen as appalling a display of bias from a so-called reporter as I did last night from the ABC News moderators. We are all used to media bias; this was on another level. And yes, whiners about the moderators are often the losers. But in this case, the whiners are right. American journalism is in deep crisis. I hope we’ll be doing more on this issue in this space in the coming months.
HIGHLIGHTS
How do you see the outlook of the race right now? Kamala Harris is ahead in national polls but what are her chances of winning the Electoral College?
KR: She is ahead, but she needs to be ahead by a lot more given the Electoral College advantage that Republicans have. She is ahead by less than Biden and Hillary were at the close, and way behind where they were at this point. But then this is an entirely different a race. So right today, I think it's a toss-up. It's his to win, but he's got to do some things in the affirmative in order to win. And if he doesn't do those, then she might not be able to win, but he might be able to lose.
What challenges have past Democrats faced in the Electoral College?
KR: Take a look at 2020, Joe Biden is ahead by 7 million votes and yet wins in the electoral college by a relatively slim margin and by a relatively small handful of votes. I think it's 153 million total votes cast, and he wins by 42,000 votes in three states. In 2016, Hillary Clinton is I think four points ahead or so on election day, and yet she loses by 77,000 votes in three states. So the record is pretty clear. They need to go into election day, if this is other elections, with a four or five point advantage, and even then it's going to be a squeaker in some of these battleground states.
What is Harris’s biggest disadvantage?
KR: Her biggest disadvantage is that she is the vice president of unpopular president who will get more popular incidentally, the further away he gets from being a candidate. One of the reasons that his numbers were so bad was that people looked at him and said, "I cannot see that man serving as president for the next four years. He's too old." The boom that we've seen for her is a palpable sense of relief. You and I saw this and we're talking about it in Chicago. I mean, they didn't know who she was and they didn't care what she was for. By God, they were glad to be rid of the giant yoke of Joe Biden who was going to drag him down to defeat.
So if he wants to beat her, then it strikes me he needs to do three things. First of all, he needs to be disciplined in explaining why she's responsible for the conditions that we find ourselves in as a country today. That means that you got to be specific. We got inflation. How do we get inflation? Well, Larry Summers and Jason Furman warned us though, Obama's economic advisors, they said, "Do not pass this gigantic $2 trillion spending measure called the American Rescue Plan because it's going to set off inflation." And what happened? She was the deciding vote. It was tied 50/50 in the Senate, and she cast the deciding vote that put in place this measure that stoke the flames of inflation. Did the same on the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. Unnecessary additional spending that created the classic condition of inflation, too much money chasing too few goods.
So he needs to be specific. He can't simply say, "Biden is responsible for it." She's got to be tattooed with it. It's got to be made clear. She cast the vote that caused the spending in those two bills plus the gigantic plus up in domestic spending that occurred in the FY22 and FY23 budgets, which again required her to vote to break the tie, to take up those measures. So he's got to be specific because they're simply saying, "Biden." People are going to say, "Biden was the president, she was the vice president. She really wasn't all that responsible." They're going to find excuses and he needs to remove the excuses.
Second thing is he's got to, in my opinion, show us he's got a second act. It is not enough to say, "I'm going to make America great again." He's got to be willing to say, "Here are the big challenges. I've got a second act in me." Look, go back to 1992. I mean, talk about a successful foreign policy action in the first Gulf War. And George H.W. Bush is at 92%, but when it came down to it, they were willing to take a chance on the governor of an obscure south-western state Arkansas because he seemed to have an idea of what people were going through and had ideas about what to do about it. Second thing he's got to do is lay out a second term agenda.
Third thing is he has got to stop doing things that give the dominant media a chance to talk about things other than the big issues, immigration, illegal immigration, the border security issue, inflation of the economy, too big a government, not strong enough defense. He goes off and says other things and count on the media covering those other things. He says, "Fill in the blank." Something other than those things and particularly, if it sounds crazy, they're going to go with it.
And same with his running mate, for God's sake. I mean, of course you can't hold him completely responsible today for the things that he said before. He's not going to be able to stop those from cascading out, but by God, get him on the same case and make the same arguments to augment what Trump is saying or should be saying, and what will really do damage to her.
Who are the voters that will decide this election?
KR: We have two gigantic armies of people. One of them was dispirited and unenthusiastic because they knew in their heart of hearts that Joe Biden was too old. And the second group were wildly enthusiastic about Donald J. Trump because they liked what he did and how he handled himself when he was president. Strong, worked on the economy. Times were good. But the people who are going to decide this election are people who started out saying, "I really don't want either one of these guys, but I'm going to have to pick between the two of them." And now one of the two that they didn't like is gone and they have a chance to fall in love with this vice president who seems to have a smile on her face, and at the Democratic Convention, sounded like she loved America.
And this was not Michelle Obama, "The first time I was ever proud of my country was when they nominated my husband for president." This is a woman who talked about, "I was a prosecutor and my job was to protect the little people. Kamala Harris for the people: that's how I introduced myself in the courtroom." This was well contrived, and Trump should not underestimate it. And he needs every single day between now and the election to be able to put a torpedo of midships that really matters, and calling her names and Communist Kamala, et cetera, et cetera, is not going to convince the undecided voter. Everybody who was moved by that kind of rhetoric is already in his camp.
How high stakes is the upcoming presidential debate?
KR: We saw a debate that elevated a man to the presidency. "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" and, "I think America can be in shining city on the hill again," Ronald Reagan in the single debate of the 1980 presidential campaign. You look at what happened among undecideds in that campaign after that one debate. You may not remember this, but you know what one of the 10 battleground states of 1980 was? Texas. And I was the young kid who was the executive director of Texans for Reagan-Bush. The polling after Reagan in that debate, the undecideds just moved in block, because they said, "That guy looks like, sounds like, and is the president."
And expectations had been raised for Jimmy Carter and lowered for Ronald Reagan. You remember they attacked him going into the debate as a right wing troglodyte from California. Well, again, why are we lowering the expectations for Kamala Harris by comparing her to Biden and Communist Kamala and blah, blah, blah. She's smart enough to raise the expectations for Donald Trump. I was reading the memo that they put out on the weekend. "He has participated in more debates than any presidential candidate in history. He'll be tough." Maybe we all look at that with a wink and a nod, but that's the way to do it.
You’ve mentioned Trump has wasted time lodging personal insults at Harris, how effectively is Trump using his time on the campaign trail?
KR: In a presidential campaign, there are three big resources: money, issues, and time. You can always raise more money, and that's not going to be a problem. Both sides are going to have sufficient resources. You can always go create more issues. But you can never create more time, which is why the days spent mocking her personally, which has no impact whatsoever on undecided voters, is such a mistake. And the days spent merely asserting, "Things were better under me and I'm going to make America great again," are insufficient. People need to be reminded in ways that they can get their hands around and say, "He was right. And not only that, but he's given me enough sense that he knows what he wants to do that I feel comfortable."
What does the future look like for the Democratic Party, even if they do win this election?
KR: The problem is that the Democratic Party, they might be able to win this election, but who thinks if they do win the election that by 2028 that the Republicans have half a brain that this won't be a route. Because in essence, this is the second term of Joe Biden. Let's not kid ourselves. Second terms are never happy times. And the second term of a guy who ideologically was thought to be a transitional figure and instead tried to be Mr. Transformative, the most transformative President since at least Lyndon Johnson and probably FDR, who was that an attack on? Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, that's who. And it was deliberate because both his ego and the ideological preferences of a lot of people around him drove him there.
Despite Harris serving as the VP for the past three years, she has somehow been able to pit herself as an outsider and Trump as the incumbent. How has she pulled that off?
KR: First of all, the compliant dominant media, let's not hold her responsible for Joe Biden's mistakes. Second of all, most of what was said by Trump about Biden was his inability to be the President. That is to say he'd lost it. He wasn't there mentally. He wasn't there physically. He was weak, he was feckless, but it wasn't a lot about the policies, only episodically.
And third of all, remember the last couple of years, she has not been a highly visible Vice President. Vice presidents are doomed to inquire about the President's health and go off to places where the President never wants to go. But she has been, I think, singularly less impressive as a vice president than most of the moderns. And as a result, she is able to come forward as a new fresh face. And then particularly when she's running against somebody who is as dominant a personality for the last eight years as Donald Trump, she is different and new, which is ironic, but he can still beat her. But it's going to require him to recognize that she's a serious contender and people are worried about serious issues and concerns.
Looking to Congress, who do you think will win the House and the Senate?
KR: So I believe absolutely the Republicans are going to take the Senate. And full disclosure, I'm involved with and was the co-founder of American Crossroads Senate Leadership Fund. But yeah, I think we will. I just finished doing a fundraiser in Montana while I was on vacation for Tim Sheehy, and Mike Rogers is a friend. David McCormick is a close friend. I knew Sam Brown when he was in Texas. I've done a fundraiser in Northeast Ohio for Bernie Marino. I've hosted my fellow Scandinavian, Eric Hovde for an event in Austin. So I've gotten to see a lot of these people up close and personal. And yeah, we're going to take the Senate. The House, I would've been there in June saying the Republicans will keep the House because of the appearance on the scene of an improbable political figure, the Speaker of the House.
Mike Johnson, who in turn has been a delightful surprise in so many different ways and restored a certain amount of civility and committee to the... Not only the Republican caucus, but the House itself. It's hard to hate that guy. And so even if you're a Democrat, you can't hate him. And that's, I think, healthy for the system. I would say that the reinvigoration of the Democratic chances at the top of the ticket by the removal of Joe Biden after the first debate means the House is up for grabs. I do think the Republicans can take it. It'll depend upon what we call the orphan seats. That is to say the Republicans in New York and California, and it depends on whether we're going to be able to take advantage of some redistricting changes in Ohio and North Carolina that will be offset by redistricting changes in Louisiana and Alabama that benefit the other side.
But whoever controls the House is going to control it narrowly. It's going to be for them or for us, a handful of seats. Of the 22 seats... I think the last time I looked at Amy's list, of the 22 toss-up seats, 11 of them are Democrat and 11 of them are Republican. So we were going to keep the House before Biden's withdrawal, but we'll take the Senate and we have a shot at the House, but the Democrats are going to outspend it.
So you think the GOP will win the Senate even if Trump loses? How many competitive races will the GOP win?
KR: And look, I think we're going to win at least two. I think we're going to win Montana and one other. I think Ohio is an excellent shot. And the best candidate we have on the field is Dave McCormick. I think Mike Rogers has turned into the happy warrior, loving, campaigning statewide in Michigan and doing a good job at it. And then we have a contest in which only one party is running a candidate, and that's Maryland where the Democrats are running Alsobrooks. And the other candidate in the race is Larry, our Governor. I mean, I'm shocked at his numbers. People do not see him in a partisan vein. He's Larry. He's the guy who made Annapolis work. Larry Hogan is the guy who beat cancer. He got rid of the stupid rain tax. When Baltimore was threatening to go up in flames, he had the guts to go there and calm people. I know him. People say I like him and he'll be a good representative of our state in the upper chamber. I mean, if there's one guy who as a Republican could win a Senate race in Maryland today, it's Larry Hogan whose approval rating is 70, almost two years out of office.
What if Republicans lose the Senate?
KR: We're in trouble as a country. If we lose the White House and lose the Congress, we're in trouble because they will do everything they can over the next two years to drive our country inexorably to the left in ways that are going to be difficult, if not impossible to undo.
Shortly before the election, Kamala Harris is publicly changing her stance away from all of her far-left from only a few years ago. Are voters buying that? Is the GOP effectively prosecuting the case against her?
KR: Again, what causes people, first, the people are up for grabs. They think all the politicians change their minds. They look at them with a great deal of, I don't know if I can trust you.
What matters is, is there a pattern that is exemplified not simply by them having had an opinion in the past and a different opinion today, but something that causes you to fundamentally distrust them as an individual?
I hate to fall back on it, but John Kerry, 2004. I actually voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it. That wasn't I changed my mind, it was I was playing politics and I want you to play along with me. I think you got to be careful. I'm not certain that it is.
Look, she's going to be able to say on fracking, for example. Yeah, she was running in 2019 and said, we're going to stop drilling oil and we're going to ban fracking. But now today, she can say, I was Vice President and I learned that, she said it the other day. I learned that natural gas could be an important part of our move towards a green economy.
Look, I would rather take the opinions that she has and the actions that she's taken that she's not walking away from and go after those. Look, on the border, she did nothing. She did not go to the border. She opposed adding, until this year and when it became a political disaster, she was opposed to all the things that we want to have done on the border and the same on inflation. She was the one who provided the opportunity for the fires of inflation to be stoked.
I'd be careful about trying to make this, oh, you can't trust her because she changed a bunch of opinions because they think every politician changes their opinions.
If voters think that Harris can change her mind on her previous positions, what about Trump and Project 2025? Trump disavowed it but is it still hurting him?
KR: Again, you know what? 2025 is a mistake on their part. Nobody knows what that is. Again, they're not talking to a single undecided voter when they're out there saying, Heritage Foundation 2025. The people worth talking about here who are going to make up this interesting study, four minutes a week is what they spend on politics, the undecided and low propensity voters.
They don't even know what the Heritage Foundation is. Is that a fraternity of some sort? What is 2025? That's next year, aren't we in 2024? Let them go off and do that kind of stupid stuff. I think he's had the right response on that. I don't know what the heck you're talking about. The voters who are up for grabs are happy to say, I don't know what you're talking about either, and I don't care.
Read the transcript here.
SHOWNOTES
Kamala Harris Defends Policy Shifts in CNN Interview (Wall Street Journal, August 30, 2024)
Tim Walz Chalks Up Mischaracterizations of Military Record to Poor ‘Grammar’ (Audrey Fahlberg, National Review, August 29, 2024)
Harris shifts key positions on border, illegal immigration as campaign promises 'pragmatic' approach (Adam Shaw and Bill Melugin, Fox News, August 29, 2024)
3 takeaways from Kamala Harris and Tim Walz’s first major interview (Aaron Blake, Washington Post, August 29, 2024)
Army defends Arlington Cemetery staffer ‘pushed aside’ by Trump aides (Washington Post, August 29, 2024)
Donald Trump Gives Mixed Signals on Florida Abortion Referendum (Wall Street Journal, August 29, 2024)
Rove: Trump needs ‘much more disciplined message’ (The Hill, August 30, 2024)
Karl Rove says Trump is ‘clearly in a subordinate role’ to Harris (The Hill, August 29, 2024)
Voters Trust Trump’s Record but Like Harris (Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal, August 28, 2024)
Karl Rove cautions Democrats about Harris' slim polling lead: 'Nowhere near ahead' (Fox News, August 28, 2024)
Trump vs. Harris: Where’s the Change? (Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2024)
The CNN Interview Revealed Only That Kamala Harris Is as Vacuous as Her Campaign (Jeffrey Blehar, National Review, August 29, 2024)
Trump Can Win on Character (Rich Lowry, New York Times, August 29, 2024)
Kamala’s Gen Z problem (Daniel Cox, Business Insider, August 27, 2024)
Top Battlegrounds – RCP Average (Real Clear Politics, Updated Regularly, September 3, 2024)
Relaunched: CPR Harris vs. Trump 2024 National Polling Average (Cook Political Report, Updated August 29, 2024)
Pennsylvania may be a problem for Harris (Nate Silver, Silver Bulletin, August 29, 2024)
Harris Has Taken Narrow Lead Over Trump, WSJ Poll Finds (Wall Street Journal, August 29, 2024)
2024 CPR Electoral College Ratings (Cook Political Report, Updated August 27, 2024)
Bingo. On the mark and the Rove interview says it all.
Danielle, did you pine for the return of Sam Donaldson last night? Ha!
Mr. Newt or Tom Cotton would have made mincemeat out of those journalist imposters. What was missing last night was the F-word-- Freedom. And any talk of America. We are on the verge of becoming just another country, between Mexico and Canada, instead of the Noblest Work of Human Wisdom our founders left us.
You are once again right on. Thanks.