Team Trump Is Freaking Out That He’ll Blow the Debate With Harris

Donald Trump’s campaign team is worried that he’s going to mess up in his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris Tuesday.

The staffers reportedly don’t know if a “happy Trump” or “angry Trump” will show up  at the National Constitution Hall in Philadelphia, where ABC News will be hosting the debate, according to unnamed sources who spoke to The Guardian.

If Trump is frustrated, he may resort to personal insults, taking aim at Harris’s race and gender and hurting voters’ perceptions, which some of his fellow Republicans have criticized as counterproductive. Trump could also go into one of his angry rants, which gets his MAGA base excited but could alienate independent and swing voters.

After President Biden’s poor showing in June’s debate with Trump, Biden faced criticism and pressure that led to him dropping out of the race. Harris’s entry to the top of the Democratic debate has reversed Trump’s momentum, making his campaign desperate for a winning attack line or other means to regain their polling edge.

So Trump’s team hopes that a strong, winning performance can improve his standing. Ever since Harris entered the race, the Trump-Vance campaign has floundered, with damaging revelations about Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance. His comments about people without children and his inability to interact normally with the public have not helped the campaign’s prospects.

Meanwhile, Harris’s selection of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz seems like a masterstroke in comparison, thanks to Walz’s strong record as a teacher and military veteran. The Democratic vice presidential candidate has also produced some powerful sound bites and hit Republicans hard with one of the strongest and simplest Democratic attack lines in years: calling them weird.

Like in June’s debate, each candidate’s microphones will be muted when it’s not their turn to speak, which is a relief to Trump staffers who think his interruptions will make him look bad. Unlike with Biden, Harris will have rhetorical skills that she honed in her days as a prosecutor, which could easily rattle a convicted felon showing signs of cognitive decline.

Nikki Haley is now working in communications—and she’s going to tweet whatever she wants.

On Friday, the failed Republican presidential candidate went deep in the archives to mock conservative pundit Lauren Chen, who was implicated this week in a Justice Department indictment on a massive Russian disinformation scheme.

A company Chen co-founded, Tenet Media, was found to have been funded by Russia as part of “a scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging.” And just a few days after the indictment, Tenet Media shuttered its doors.

“Karma’s a bitch,” Haley posted on X (formerly Twitter), quoting a Chen post from 2023 where the pundit said Haley “should move to Ukraine and run for its presidency then,” referencing Haley stating her support for Ukraine at a CNN town hall.

In addition to Tenet Media folding as a result of the indictment and the consequent negative publicity, Chen also lost her job at another conservative media outlet, Blaze Media. Meanwhile, Haley, who withdrew from the presidential race in March and subsequently endorsed Donald Trump, just took a job at a public affairs firm.

Tenet Media, which worked with right-wing influencers like Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, and Benny Johnson, is now a black mark on the résumé of Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan, the company’s other founder. Being singled out as a useful tool for a Russian disinformation campaign is not going to land her a cushy new job, unlike Nikki Haley.

Despite the funny tweet, it’s worth remembering that Haley is still backing Trump, who isn’t exactly a staunch supporter of Ukraine himself. But, seeing as she isn’t working in politics anymore, she can collect her P.R. paycheck and not have to worry about being called out herself.

Florida is reportedly sending police officers to the homes of people who signed a petition supporting an abortion rights ballot initiative.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration has begun investigating thousands of verified signatures that helped to put a state constitutional amendment protecting the right to abortion on the ballot in November. The amendment would overturn Florida’s current six-week abortion ban.

Petition organizers collected about 100,000 more signatures than they needed, surpassing the 900,000 that are required by the state and ensuring that their policy would be on the ballot. Now the Department of State’s spokesperson Ryan Ash claims that his agency has “uncovered evidence of illegal conduct with fraudulent petitions.”

Supervisors in Hillsborough, Orange, Palm Beach, Osceola, Alachua, and Broward counties have been requested to gather around 36,000 signatures for state review, according to the Tampa Bay Times. One supervisor with 16 years of experience told the Times that the state’s request was entirely unprecedented. Not only had the state requested signatures that had already been verified, but they did so for a validated petition, not a rejected petition, which are typically the basis of fraud investigations.

Multiple residents in Lee County have reported being visited by law enforcement following up on their petition signatures.

Fort Myers resident Isaac Menasche shared in a Facebook post Wednesday that a “detective investigating petition fraud” had come to his home.

“I had indeed signed a petition seeking to have the right to an abortion placed on the ballot in Florida. I remembered doing so and the circumstances surrounding it,” wrote Menasche, noting that he doesn’t usually sign petitions.

“The experience left me shaken. What troubled me was he had a folder on me containing my personal information—about 10 pages. I saw a copy of my drivers license and copy of the petition I signed. It was obvious to me that a significant effort was exerted to determine if indeed I had signed the petition.”

Menasche wrote that it was “troubling” that such resources were being allocated to the investigation and wondered if the same would have been done for a less divisive issue than abortion.

Florida state Representative Anna Eskamani responded to the reported police encounter in a post on Facebook Friday.

“This is unhinged and undemocratic behavior being pushed by Governor Ron DeSantis in an effort to continue our state’s near total abortion ban,” Eskamani wrote. “It’s clear voter intimidation and plain corruption—continue to call it out and fight back.”

At his press conference Friday in New York, Donald Trump not only complained heavily about the defamation judgment that he’s appealing, but also about his own lawyers.

Trump said, “I have all of this legal talent, but legal talent cannot overcome rigged judges, they can’t overcome a 4 percent Republican area, and I’m disappointed in my legal talent, I’ll be honest with you. They’re good, they’re good people. They’re talented people.”

After that, however, Trump went off on a tangent about some kind of dress involved in his defamation trial, wondering why his lawyers didn’t mention it, as it somehow exonerated him.

Later in the press conference, Trump criticized one of his lawyers for telling him not to attend the defamation trial in 2023, and seemed unsure if it took place while he was still president.

The attacks on his own lawyers were a small part of Trump’s incoherent ramblings during his Friday press conference, from his bizarre choice to mention other sexual assault allegations against him to attacking E. Jean Carroll and basically inviting another lawsuit. It could all be more examples of his increasing cognitive decline, or his famously thin skin.

Either way, maybe the former president should avoid attacking his lawyers, considering they may be the only people standing between him and actual legal consequences for his actions. Then again, the Supreme Court did give him a huge favor with its immunity ruling earlier this summer, which was a big reason why his hush money sentencing was delayed for a second time. Still, keeping his mouth shut and focusing on his campaign would be the smart thing to do for Trump, but that’s never been his strong suit, and his campaign knows it.

Liz Cheney has advice for Kamala Harris for her debate next week: “Let Trump be Trump.”

The former Republican Wyoming representative spoke with Atlantic writer Mark Leibovich in Texas on Friday, following her endorsement of Harris for president this week. In her conversation, she shared words of wisdom for Harris—and a brutally honest condemnation of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.

When asked how Harris should approach Tuesday’s presidential debate against Trump, Cheney responded by saying that Harris should relish the fact that this is an “opportunity [where] Donald Trump gets to show the American people who he is.” And who he is, in her words, is a “misogynistic pig.”

“This is my diplomatic way of saying it: They’re misogynistic pigs,” Cheney said, speaking of Vance and Trump as the audience erupted in applause. “I think that will become clear.”

“Look at what J.D. Vance says on almost a daily basis about women; that guy’s got a real women problem,” Cheney added. “I don’t know what it is, and I don’t want to psychoanalyze him, and there’s a lot of eyeliner jokes to be made in there …”

Women in this country “have had enough,” said Cheney, who urged Harris to focus on “substance and policy” during ABC’s upcoming debate against the former president, while also getting in a few quips about Vance’s weirdness.*

In the same presser, Cheney shared a shocking piece of news: Her father also plans to vote for Harris this November.

“If you listen to what [Vance] says about women and you look at what Donald Trump and what Donald Trump has done and what he says about women—these are not people we can entrust with power again.”

* This article originally misstated the network on which the debate will air.

Apparently, Donald Trump has gone too far for a former acolyte of unitary executive theory.

During an appearance at the Texas Tribune Festival on Friday, former Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney made a startling announcement about her father’s plans for the November election.

“Dick Cheney will be voting for Kamala Harris,” she said, as the crowd erupted into applause.

“My dad believes, and he’s said publicly, that there has never been an individual in our country who is as grave a threat to our democracy as Donald Trump is,” she explained. She had formally endorsed Harris during an address at Duke University on Thursday.

Later on Friday, the elder Cheney released a statement confirming that he would vote for Harris in November.

“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again,” he said.   

“As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.”

The former vice president for George W. Bush had previously criticized Trump, calling him a “coward” in an advertisement for his daughter’s 2022 congressional campaign.

His daughter was one of a small handful of Republicans to openly criticize Trump after the deadly January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. As a result, Trump has suggested she be tried for treason in a “televised military tribunal.”

While in office, Dick Cheney advocated for a catastrophic and unnecessary war, invaded the privacy of millions of Americans, and sought to bolster presidential authority (and immunity). Back then, he propagated his own damage to democracy. Now it seems that Trump offends even his sensibilities.

Liz Cheney didn’t mince words when discussing Trump or his lackluster running mate, J.D. Vance. “This is my diplomatic way of saying it: They’re misogynistic pigs,” Cheney said, as the audience cheered. She said she remained hopeful that their characters would “become clear” during the upcoming debates.

This story has been updated.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan handed Donald Trump a massive win on Friday, delaying his hush-money sentencing until November 26, after the national election. But news of the reprieve wasn’t enough for Trump, who turned around and distributed a deliberately misleading message to his followers on Truth Social that claimed the trial—in which he had already been found guilty by a jury—amounted to “no case.”

“The Manhattan D.A. Witch Hunt has been postponed because everyone realizes that there was NO CASE, I DID NOTHING WRONG!” Trump wrote. “It is a political attack against me by Comrade Kamala Harris and other Radical Left Opponents for purposes of Election Interference, and is a case that should have never been brought. Nothing like this has ever happened in the United States of America—IT IS STRICTLY THIRD WORLD, BANANA REPUBLIC ‘STUFF.’”

Trump then proceeded to name-drop a host of Fox News contributors and legal analysts, including Jonathan Turley, Alan Dershowitz, and Mark Levin, claiming that top attorneys “understand this.”

“I greatly appreciate the words ‘if necessary’ being utilized in the Decision, because there should be no ‘if necessary’—This case should be rightfully terminated, as we prepare for the Most Important Election in the History of our Country,” Trump continued, referring to the final words in the legal order that specified the future sentencing date. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Trump was found guilty in May of 34 felony charges related to falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime in the first degree. Trump was accused of using his former fixer Michael Cohen to sweep an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels under the rug before the 2016 presidential election in an effort to skew public opinion.

Donald Trump is trying to appeal a multimillion-dollar judgment against him for defaming writer and author E. Jean Carroll. In a press conference Friday, though, Trump continued to attack her, accusing Carroll of lying.

“I should be suing [E Jean Carroll] for defamation,” Trump said, noting that “this is not the kind of publicity you’d like.”

“She has gone around for years saying this story, and it’s a total lie.… This whole thing started, along with just about every case I’ve been involved with, with the political campaign of Harris, who’s having a bad time,” Trump added.

Trump described Carroll as “a woman I have never met, I don’t know, I have no idea who she is,” before accusing her of making up the sexual assault to promote her book. These were the exact grounds that opened Trump up to the first defamation lawsuit in 2019.

Repeating such a lie probably isn’t the best idea, as Trump already owes Carroll $88.3 million for sexually abusing and defaming her. On Friday, oral arguments began in his appeal against a $5 million defamation judgment, which spurred his press conference rant. Carroll could easily have more legal ammunition from Trump’s press conference alone, where he even accused her of taking her accusations from a Law and Order episode.

It’s a recurring pattern for the former president and convicted felon, who can’t stop complaining about and attacking Carroll despite the legal judgments against him. During Friday’s press conference, Trump even went off on a tangent mentioning other possible sexual assault accusations against him, which probably freaked out his lawyers.

While Trump experienced some good news earlier on Friday when Judge Juan Merchan decided to delay the sentencing in his hush-money trial until after the election, his press conference Friday isn’t likely to help his appeal against Carroll. Maybe he thinks he can keep escaping the consequences of his actions, no matter what he does.

The guy who pushed the #Pizzagate conspiracy theory in 2016 and the #StoptheSteal lie in 2020 is a part of the official Republican “protect the vote” initiative—because of course he is.

According to an email shared by HuffPost politics reporter Igor Bobic, RNC’s Election Integrity Department is advertising a webinar with Jack Posobiec to teach Wisconsinites “how YOU can help protect the vote.”

The effort is part of the RNC’s “Protect the Vote” project, a battleground state initiative to recruit and train “thousands of poll watchers” for the November election. But their surrogates are just as sketchy as you might imagine.

Posobiec, whom the RNC calls a “great patriot,” is a political operative who has “collaborated with white nationalists, antigovernment extremists, members of the Proud Boys, and neo-Nazis in his capacity as an operative,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. He is probably most remembered for his role in Pizzagate, in which he spread the 2016 conspiracy theory that Democratic politicians like Hillary Clinton were running a pedophilic sex dungeon below a D.C. pizza joint. His story led to a gunman opening fire inside the pizzeria.

Two months prior to the 2020 election, he tweeted “StoptheSteal 2020 is coming,” allowing lies about the election to spread before ballots were even cast. More recently, the “social media influencer” has been peddling lies about Ukraine and celebrating what he called the “end of democracy” at the Conservative Political Action Conference this year.

Clearly, this is exactly the kind of person the official Republican Party wants teaching poll watchers how to preserve election integrity.

Tenet Media is no more.

The conservative media network folded Thursday night, just one day after the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment accusing it of being funded by Russian state-controlled media, according to Tenet Media field reporter Tayler Hansen.

The indictment accused Tenet and its founders of receiving nearly $10 million from employees of Russia Today as part of “a scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement.

The company’s founders, Canadian Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donovon, have not yet commented publicly on the scandal. The fallout from the alleged propaganda scheme lost Chen her broadcasting gig with another far-right media group, Blaze Media, which has already wiped episodes of her podcast from Spotify and deleted her contributor page from its website. Blaze Media CEO Tyler Cardon told Semafor that the conservative anchor had been “terminated.”

The Russian funds paid for videos by popular far-right personalities, including podcaster Tim Pool and Lauren Southern. Pool has since described himself as a “victim” in the Tenet scandal.

“I have been contacted by the FBI as a potential victim of a crime,” Pool posted on X on Thursday. “The FBI believes I have information relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation and have requested a voluntary interview. I will be offering my assistance in this matter.”

YouTube also wiped Tenet Media’s content from its platform “after careful review” following the indictment, telling NBC News that its decision to erase the channel and its affiliates was part of “ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations.”

Tenet is just the latest flavor of Russian-backed misinformation campaign that has plagued American politics, but it is a sign of just how sizable the foreign country’s budget is in 2024 for influencing the November election.