Letters from an American - July 23, 2024

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

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July 23, 2024. Vice President Kamala Harris continues her momentum toward the 2024 presidential election since President Joe Biden's surprise announcement on Sunday that he would not accept the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination. that he would not accept the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination. Today, more than 350 national security leaders endorsed Harris for president, noting that if elected president, she would enter that office with more significant national security experience than the four presidents prior to President Biden. presidents prior to President Biden. As vice president, she has met with more than 150 world leaders and traveled to 21 countries, the authors wrote. And they called out her work across the

globe, from her work strengthening partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region, to her historic trip to Africa, and her efforts to expand U.S. relationships with nations in the Caribbean and North Central America. In contrast to Harris, the letter said, Trump is a threat to America's national security. Those signing the letter included former Central Intelligence Agency Director Michael Hayden, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, National Security Advisors Susan Rice and Thomas Donilon, former Secretaries of Defense Chuck Hagel and Leon Panetta, and former Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. In a New York Times op-ed today,

former Secretary of State Clinton praised Biden for his decision to end his campaign, which she called, as pure an act of patriotism as I have seen in my lifetime. She went on to say that Vice President Harris represents a fresh start for American politics, offering a vision of America with its best days ahead of it and, rather than old grievances, new solutions. Clinton noted that her own political campaigns had seen her burned in effigy, but said, it is a trap to believe that progress is impossible and that Americans cannot overcome sexism and racism. After all, she pointed out, voters elected black American Barack Obama in 2008, and she herself won the popular vote in 2016. Abortion bans and attacks on democracy are galvanizing women voters like never before, Clinton wrote.

And with Ms. Harris at the top of the ticket leading the way, this movement may become an unstoppable wave. Today, Harris held her first campaign rally, speaking to supporters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Republicans held their national convention just last week. The energy from the 3,000 people packed into the gym where she walked out to Beyonce's song, Freedom, was palpable. She began by thanking Biden and touting his record, then turned to noting that in her past as a prosecutor, California attorney general, U.S. senator from California, and vice president, she took on perpetrators of all kinds, predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So, she said, hear me when I say I know Donald Trump's type.

to remind the audience that Trump ran a for-profit college that scammed students, was found liable for committing sexual abuse, and was just found guilty of fraud on 34 counts. While Trump is relying on billionaires and big corporations, she said, we are running a people-powered campaign and will be a people-first presidency. The Democrat, she said, believe in a future where every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead. A future where no child has to grow up in poverty, where every worker has the freedom to join a union, where every person has affordable health care, affordable child care, and paid family leave. We believe in a future where every senior can retire with dignity. All of this is to say, she continued, building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency,

because when our middle class is strong, America is strong. In contrast, she said, Trump wants to take the country backward. She warned that he and his Project 2025 will weaken the middle class, cutting Social Security and Medicare and giving tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations while working families foot the bill. They intend to end the Affordable Care Act, she said, and take us back to a time when insurance companies had the power to deny people with preexisting conditions. Remember what that was like?

Children with asthma, women who survived breast cancer, grandparents with diabetes. America has tried these failed economic policies before, but we are not going back. We're not going back. Ours is a fight for the future, she said, and it is a fight for freedom. Generations of Americans before us led the fight for freedom.

And now the baton is in our hands. Meanwhile, MAGA Republicans are still scrambling for a plan of attack against Harris. One of their first angles has been the sexism and racism Clinton predicted, calling her a DEI hire. House Republican leaders have told fellow lawmakers to dial back the sexist and racist attacks. MAGA Republican Representative Andy Ogles, a Republican of Tennessee, has taken a different angle. He introduced an impeachment resolution against Harris, while others are demanding that the House should investigate Harris and demand the cabinet remove President Biden under the 25th Amendment. The Republican National Committee has decided to make fun of Harris's laugh.

But concern in the Trump camp showed today when Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio shared with reporters a confidential memorandum, trying to get ahead of polls, he says will show Harris leading Trump. He said he expects to see a Harris honeymoon that will end quickly. Trump has continued to post angrily on his social media feed,

but is otherwise sticking close to home. His lack of visibility highlights that the Republicans are now on the receiving end of the same age and coherence concerns they had used against Biden. And there might be more attention paid to Trump's lapses now that Biden has stepped aside. CNN's Kate Sullivan noted today, for example, that Trump said he'd consider Jamie Dimon for Treasury Secretary, but now says he doesn't know who said that. As Tim Alberta noted Sunday in The Atlantic, the Trump campaign

tapped J.D. Vance in an attempt to harden the Republican base, only to find now that he cannot bring to the ticket any of the new supporters they suddenly need. According to Harry Enten of CNN, Vance is the first vice presidential pick since 1980 who has entered the race with a negative favorability rating, in his case, negative six points. Since 2000, the usual average is plus 19 points. Vance won his Senate seat in 2022 by plus six points. In an election, Republican Governor Mike DeWine won by plus 25 points. Vance was the worst performing Republican candidate in 2022 up and down the ballot in the state of Ohio, Enten said. The J.D. Vance pick

makes no sense from a statistical polling perspective. Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark, who specializes in focus groups, noted that swing voters groups simply do not like Vance. Both his flip-flopping on Trump and his extreme abortion position are what breaks through, she wrote. The 2024 election is not consuming all of the political oxygen, even in this astonishing week. Today, the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, announced that eight large companies must turn over information about the data they collect about consumers, product sales, and how the surveillance the companies used affected consumer prices. Firms that harvest Americans' personal data can put people's privacy at risk.

Now firms could be exploiting this vast trove of personal information to charge people higher prices, FTC Chair Lena M. Kahn said. Americans deserve to know whether businesses are using detailed consumer data to deploy surveillance pricing, and the FTC's inquiry will shed light on the shadowy ecosystem of pricing middlemen. The eight companies are MasterCard, Revionix, Bloomreach, JPMorgan Chase, Task Software, Proz, Accenture, and McKinsey & Company. In the House, Republicans have been unable to pass the appropriations bills necessary to fund the 2025 U.S. budget, laced as they are with culture war's poison pills the extremists demand. Today, House members debated the appropriations bill for the Interior Department and the Environment, which, among other things,

bans the use of funds to promote or advance critical race theory or to require COVID-19 masks or vaccine mandates. According to the European Climate Service, Copernicus, last Sunday was the hottest day in recorded history. The MAGA Republicans' Appropriations Bill for Interior and the Environment calls for more oil drilling, fewer regulations on pollutants, no new regulations on vehicles, rejecting Biden's climate change executive orders, and reducing the funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by 20 percent. Letters from an American was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dedham, Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.