The Headlines - Harris Outspends Trump in Ad Battle, and Israel Bombards Hezbollah

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

Plus, an iconic kitchen brand files for bankruptcy.   Tune in every weekday morning. To get our full audio journalism and storytelling experience, download the New York Times Audio app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. On Today’s Episode:Harris, With an Online Avalanche, Outspends Trump by Tens of Millions, by Shane Goldmacher and Nicholas NehamasNorth Carolina Governor Race Jolted by Report That G.O.P. Nominee Called Himself a ‘Black Nazi,’ by Shane Goldmacher, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan and Nicholas NehamasAt Funerals and in Hospitals, Talk of Revenge for Pager Attacks, by Hwaida Saad and Ben HubbardStocks Hit Record High a Day After Fed’s Big Interest Rate Cut, by Joe Rennison and Danielle KayeTupperware (the Brand) May Fail. Tupperware (the Word) Will Survive, by Scott Cacciola

From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Amelia Nirenberg. Today's Friday, September 20th. Here's what we're covering. Kamala Harris's presidential campaign has unleashed an avalanche of digital advertising and is outspending Donald Trump's team by tens of millions of dollars. New data shows what that looks like in practice. In the weeks surrounding the debate,

Trump spent about $600,000 for ads on Instagram and Facebook. That same week, Harris spent $12 million, 20 times as much. That's in part because she has more cash. She raised twice as much as Trump in July and August after jumping into the race. It also reflects different strategies by the campaigns. Harris is pressing hard on social media, which could draw in younger supporters or undecided voters. Meanwhile, Trump, a former network TV star, has privately said that he thinks digital spending is a waste, and he's urged his campaign to spend more on television ads, even though his advisors

credited a Facebook-centered strategy with helping him win in 2016. A spokeswoman for his campaign told The Times that he doesn't need to spend as much as Harris online because voters are choosing to watch content about Trump on their own. But the gap has summoned his party worried. One Republican digital strategist warned, quote, we just can't afford to abandon a platform to Democrats. In North Carolina, one of the country's most competitive races for governor has been jolted by revelations about past comments made by the Republican nominee. On Thursday, CNN reported that Mark Robinson, who's currently the state's lieutenant governor, called himself a Black Nazi

and defended slavery in comments on a porn site. Robinson, who's been a vocal opponent of transgender rights, also posted about how he enjoyed transgender pornography. The Times hasn't independently verified the comments, which CNN says were written between 2008 and 2012. Those are not the words of Mark Robinson. You know my words, you know my character, and you know that I have been completely transparent in this race and before. In a video posted before the article was published, Robinson called CNN's reporting, quote, salacious tabloid trash.

He vowed to stay in the race, and the North Carolina Republican Party is standing by him. But the inflammatory comments could have implications beyond just the governor's race. Both Trump and Harris are fighting to win North Carolina. Part of the reason that North Carolina is in play in the presidential election may in fact be because Trump endorsed Mark Robinson during the Republican primary. Jess Bidgood is a Times political reporter. He called him Martin Luther King Jr. on steroids, even though he knew at the time that he was a controversial candidate. Robinson was someone who had made comments widely viewed as sexist, as anti-Semitic, as anti-LGBTQ. Trump endorsed him anyway.

Robinson went on to win the primary, and he has been trailing the Democratic candidate in the polls. And that may actually be having kind of a dragging effect on Trump's own performance in North Carolina. It's a state that Republicans usually win in presidential elections, but this year it is looking potentially closer than ever. And so this controversy there may just make it even harder for Trump to win a state that is absolutely critical to his ability to be elected president. Trump's campaign has not directly addressed Robinson's comments. One person close to the campaign told The Times it's not planning to call for him to drop out,

though it may distance itself from him. Meanwhile, Trump is scheduled to visit North Carolina tomorrow. In Lebanon, the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, has made his first public remarks after the militant group was hit by an audacious attack that blew up their pagers and walkie-talkies. Nasrallah said the explosions, which killed dozens of people and injured nearly 3,000 others, dealt a, quote, severe and cruel blow to Hezbollah. The attacks spread tremendous fear across the country as people worried that any electronic device that they had in their homes and their houses and their pockets and their backpacks could suddenly be transformed into a bomb. Times reporter Ben Hubbard has been reporting on the aftermath of the attacks.

Ben says Lebanese authorities have banned people from bringing pagers into public buildings and onto airplanes, and that the army has been collecting and detonating suspicious devices. The widespread attacks have also strained Lebanon's health care system. Many people interviewed in hospitals talked about how their loved ones had lost fingers, had lost eyes, had had parts of their faces blown off. Hezbollah was clearly the target of the attack. Of the 37 dead, Hezbollah did claim many of them as fighters and mourn them as such. But we know that there were also at least three children. And then among the wounded, it's complicated because Hezbollah does have a large fighting force, but it also has a large apparatus that does effectively civilian types of operations.

They have schools, they have political offices, they do social services. And so there's good reason to believe that many of these people were also injured in the attacks. We've never seen this kind of attack that hits so many people in such a kind of a personal, intimate way. And for that reason, it's very difficult to anticipate what Hezbollah's response might be. In his speech yesterday, Nasrallah vowed retribution against Israel, which defense and intelligence officials say carried out the plot. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied any involvement. Hours after Nasrallah spoke, Israel carried out dozens of airstrikes against Hezbollah,

one of its most intense bombardments of the group this year. The markets closed at record highs yesterday, after the Fed announced its decision to cut interest rates for the first time in four years. The S&P 500 made a 1.7 percent gain, breaking a record it set in mid-July. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also hit its highest point ever. The drop in interest rates was a good sign for investors, since lower borrowing costs can boost corporate profits and increase the value of their holdings. But at the same time, investors are weighing whether the Fed's move is a sign that it's worried about the labor market. Fed officials are now forecasting that the unemployment rate could go up.

And finally, it's the end of the Tupperware era. This week, the legendary plastic container company filed for bankruptcy, saying it had fallen more than a billion dollars into debt. Hear that? That's Tupperware's airtight promise to lock in flavor and lock out air. Tupperware's takeover of the American kitchen started after World War II, when Earl Silas Tupper invented a way to use leftover plastic to preserve food. His products took off after a marketing whiz named Brownie Wise launched Tupperware parties, where women sold the products to each other. Tupperware became a household name,

but eventually that might have been part of its downfall. When the original patent expired, other companies rushed in to profit on the airtight design. And even though they weren't official Tupperware products, everyone still called them Tupperware. In the marketing world, that's what's known as genericization. Think Kleenex instead of facial tissue or Ziploc for sealable sandwich bags. But unlike other companies, Tupperware never figured out how to protect its brand. The company is now closing its only remaining factory in the U.S. and laying off workers. But its name, our leftovers, and many cabinets full of mismatched plastic lids will live on. Those are the headlines.

Today on The Daily, with just 46 days left until the election, Times political reporters Maggie Haberman, Shane Goldmacher, and Nate Cohn discuss the state of the race. That's next in the New York Times audio app, or listen wherever you get your podcasts. This show is made by Robert Jimison, Jessica Metzger, Tracy Mumford, Jan Stewart, and me, Amelia Nirenberg, with help from Isabella Anderson and Zoe Murphy. Original theme by Dan Powell. Special thanks to Larissa Anderson and Paula Schumann. The headlines will be back on Monday.