The 24 Seven: Kremlinology Edition
24sight News’ daily newsletter highlighting the most important stories shaping the race for the White House
1. Tea Leaves
Former President Donald Trump is saying things which don’t make sense and freezing inexplicably at his campaign events.
In close to a decade now of the 45th president dominating national news, it’s still hard to know just what he means – literally and seriously. And even less so how his statements would translate into action: Is he serious about imprisoning people he doesn’t like? Would he actually try to stay past January 21, 2029 – even though the Constitution bars presidents from serving more than two terms?
But this has generated renewed interest, not just with the conflagration surrounding President Joe Biden’s debate performance two weeks ago and subsequent revelations about his health, but with the rise in attention on Project 2025 and Trump’s disavowal of the detailed policy plan.
Leading to the central question of any election – from incredibly bonkers to incredibly boring: What would he do as president?
The Republican National Committee platform gave a better indication of how he would govern if returned to office. But many of the details are still a mystery.
2. Palace Intrigue
Veteran politics reporter Tim Alberta delivers an excellent (and rare) look deep inside the third Trump campaign to show an operation with a singular mission of bullying the hell out of Joe Biden and playing to young Black men and Latinos.
Highly recommend reading Alberta’s deeply reported piece in The Atlantic, it gives a good sense at why outwardly, so much of Trump’s third run for office has been portrayed as placid and organized, even as Trump himself remains as chaotic as ever.
Read for the interplay between co-campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita in particular – a tight-knit team, but also focused on very distinct aspects of the campaign.
3. Pressing the case
Biden will deliver the latest in his test cases proving that he should stick around as the (this has become an almost daily ritual in the race, from his bronzed reaction to the Supreme Court’s landmark immunity ruling last week and his Stephanopoulos interview to his NATO speech Tuesday.)
Biden will stand face to face with the White House press corps, formally, taking questions for the first time since the debate – and the corps has quite a few questions.
Yet the latest developments – including a New York Times bombshell reporting that Biden’s campaign is testing a hypothetical Harris vs. Trump race – have amped up the anticipation of what Biden will or won’t say Thursday evening.
Here’s where you can watch the presser.
Watch for live coverage from 24sight on the socials and here on Substack over at the chat.
4. CBC - Ridin’ w Biden
In the fallout from the debate, one of the key indicators of whether Biden will step aside or stay has been the Congressional Black Caucus. Rep. Jim Clyburn, the South Carolina Democrat and elder statesman of the party helped catapult Biden to victory in the 2020 primaries and has stuck by him after the debate fallout. But rumblings behind the scenes that Black Democrats may want Vice President Kamala Harris to take the torch have kept alive questions of whether Biden’s intraparty “dam” is holding.
For now, the dam seems firmly in place. Rep. Steven Horsford, chairman of the CBC and a Nevada Democrat says the critical group is still ridin’ with Biden.
5. Trump cards
Semafor political reporter Kadia Goba joined us on the podcast to talk about what she learned from talking to Black athletes, celebrities and self-promoters Trump said wouldn’t have hung out with him for decades if he were truly racist.
EMBED: https://www.24sight.news/p/that-coup-ing-sound-kadia-goba-edition
We also got into the rock-and-hard-place scenario Black Democratic lawmakers currently find themselves in as Biden continues to flail but Vice President Kamala Harris’ path to victory as a hail-Mary replacement remains unclear.
6. Wither the Constitution
With less than four months to go before Election Day, the right-leaning crew behind the Society for the Rule of Law felt compelled to release a formal “Statement of Principles” reminding everyone that abiding by the U.S. Constitution remains paramount.
Former GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock told Morning Joe she was “very concerned” that current lawmakers might have forgotten that “they have an important role in upholding their oaths, the rule of law, respecting the transition of power.”
“And that it’s not about just one man,” she warned.
Comstock didn’t call out the 147 congressional Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election results on Trump’s behalf specifically, but did chastise those who downplayed the horrors of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on Congress out of misplaced loyalty.
“It means when people breach the border of the Capitol and are coming in screaming, ‘hang Mike Pence!’ or they’re going after Nancy Pelosi, even if you don’t care for one side or the other, you respect the rule of law,” she said.
7. Get ready to rumble
Trump fans still don’t know which 2024 vice presidential hopeful will get to sing the former president’s praises onstage at next week’s convention, but GOP officials have revealed the hype man who’ll bring Trump out on Thursday night.
The Wall Street Journal reports that longtime business associate and recent RNC fixture Dana White is slated to speak at the Milwaukee convention right before Trump shows up to formally accept the nomination.
White, the CEO of mixed martial arts promotion machine the Ultimate Fighting Championship, has been a big Trump supporter dating back to when he’d book fights at the former real estate developer’s since-shuttered Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City.
“Nobody took us seriously, except Donald Trump,” the WSJ quotes White as saying in 2016. “Donald was the first to recognize the potential that we saw in the UFC, and encouraged us to build our business.”