The '24 Seven - 3/13/24
The top seven stories shaping the race for the White House
Hello, and welcome to The ‘24 Seven – 24sight’s daily roundup of the top seven stories shaping the race for the White House. If you see something we missed or have suggestions, drop us a note - tom@24sight.news and warren@24sight.news.
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Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor??
1 Formerly disputed heavyweights
The Thrilla in Manila, the Rumble in the Jungle … happened five decades ago, when Joe Biden and Donald Trump were rising stars. Now the two old bulls are figuratively touching gloves again after securing the delegates needed to win their party’s respective nominations Tuesday night. On the surface it is very much a rematch of 2020, but the dynamics are very, very different from four years ago — from the midst of the pandemic to who was inhabiting the White House then.
(If you’ve got any sharp sloganeering for what the 2024 battle should be called, drop us a line. tom@24sight.news and warren@24sight.news. There are no wrong answers, only happy accidents.)
2 Trump-ish
Mega-rich Elon Musk, formerly the world’s richest person, has been flirting with a formal seal of approval for Trump — this despite giving Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis an in-kind donation of sorts with a disastrous campaign launch on X.com last year.
(X.com is still the heart of the online political world, but with more pornbots, sock puppet accounts and fewer celebrities and actual humans than during its peak popularity during the Trump administration.)
Trump reportedly asked Musk to buy his social media platform last year, the Washington Post scooped, and Trump courted Musk two weeks ago at his Florida resort as he hunts for money to pay millions in legal fines.
But Musk has already made donations in-kind aplenty by re-platforming Trump on Twitter (effectively absolving the embattled former president of the ban imposed after the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 siege at the U.S. Capitol) and restoring disgraced conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
3 Big Labor
Biden worked on leaders of the Teamsters Tuesday as he looks to secure their endorsement (this as one of the largest unions in the country has toyed with the idea of supporting Trump.) Biden, in private remarks to the union, played up his support for the Butch Lewis Act — which shored up union pensions at the start of his term, the AP reports.
Biden has leaned into his union roots throughout the 2024 race, becoming the first president to join union members on a picket line during the auto-workers strike and throwing shout-outs to labor throughout the race, including a State of the Union call out to UAW President Shawn Fain.
4 The Buck Stopped There
He was one just two lawmakers to oppose emergency Covid-relief funding. He savaged the Covid vaccine even as the Trump White House sped its delivery to the public. He was one of just eight Republicans who kicked then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy from the dais. He launched his career in national politics with the Tea Party wave, fighting against the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) and frequently drew a hard line on immigration.
Now Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colorado, is exiting Congress, because the place is too damn dysfunctional. (And he hinted more will be leaving.) His departure also cuts the ability of House Republicans to approve measures without either Democratic support or Democratic absences — dropping Rs’ margin from 219-213 to 218-213.
It would be unsurprising to watch longtime lawmakers or moderates ostracized by their party run for the exits, but Buck joins some of staunchest conservatives among Republicans leaving the House. It’s a good reminder that the hard right (ideologically speaking) is distinct and often at odds with the Trump-centered GOP, built more on allegiance to the former president and a handful of key issues like immigration.
5 Insert Pun Hur
The special counsel who investigated Biden’s removal of classified documents after he served as vice president, Robert Hur, managed to do Tuesday what problem solvers, No Labelsers, and all center-must-hold types never could: He united the fiercely partisan House Judiciary Committee around “meh”.
There were plenty of interesting nuggets from Hur’s daylong testimony, including his determination that Biden apparently has a photographic memory.
Meanwhile, Trump’s classified documents case drags along – with critical questions as to whether it gets adjudicated before the election.
6 Georgia narrows
The judge overseeing the Georgia case regarding Trump’s attempts to overthrow his 2020 loss there tossed six of the 41 counts against the former president, citing. alack of evidence, but kept in place the most serious of the racketeering charges against him and his co-defendants.
7 The Other Veep Stakes
Ventura guess who Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to bring on his presidential ticket? (No apologies for that pun.) He’s looking at former NFL quarterback turned anti-vaccine activist Aaron Rodgers and former WWE star turned governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura.
(The black sheep of the Kennedy family recently defended himself against questions of palling around with Jeffrey Epstein by noting that in New York you meet a lot of people, like Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, O.J. Simpson and others.)