The Archive

IN THIS EDITION

Schumer’s July journey: From anguish to hope

It’s 2016 all over again following Trump’s racist attacks on Harris

Good’s recount day, what to watch in Tennessee primaries

News: Republican Voters Against Trump launches $3.5M ad campaign

THE TOP

Schumer’s July journey: From anguish to hope

Happy Thursday morning.

Welcome to August. There are 96 days until the 2024 election. We’ll get to former President Donald Trump’s faceplant at the NABJ conference in Chicago in a moment.

First, on Democrats’ July turnaround: The most consequential moment of this cycle so far was when President Joe Biden withdrew from the race and endorsed his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris.

And perhaps nobody on Capitol Hill had a better vantage point than Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who’s known Biden for decades, including serving for 10 years together in the Senate.

Schumer has been loath to discuss his July 13 meeting with Biden in Rehoboth Beach, Del. During that one-on-one, Schumer warned the president that more Hill Democrats were ready to go public with demands that he step aside. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had given Biden the same message.

During our interview with Schumer on Wednesday, we posed this question: At what point did you know you needed to have that sit-down with the president?

His answer:

At the time, Schumer was getting an earful from Democratic senators who feared that if Biden remained the party’s presidential nominee, he would bring them down too. It was a downright terrible stretch for Democrats, who were in full-on crisis mode. The implication here is that Biden either wasn’t listening to Schumer’s caucus, or the president was being shielded from those views by his advisers.

Fast-forward two weeks: With Biden out of the race and Harris the presumptive Democratic nominee, Schumer was practically giddy when talking about the change in circumstances, claiming it was “like night and day.”

“The enthusiasm, you can cut it with a knife. It’s palpable, for Democrats winning the presidency, winning back the House and keeping the Senate,” Schumer said. “It’s just amazing. Everywhere I go, and all the people I talk to, it’s like night and day.”

It’s with this backdrop that Schumer is publicly upbeat heading into the August recess. In addition to Harris’ takeover at the top of the ticket, Schumer shepherded a landmark children’s online safety package through the Senate while also using floor time for messaging votes intended to help his most endangered incumbents.

And now the hard part: The Senate map is still as challenging as ever for Democrats, who are defending several seats in deep-red or purple states. West Virginia is all but officially gone already with Sen. Joe Manchin’s (I-W.Va.) retirement. Messaging votes on abortion and the child tax credit won’t make Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) any less vulnerable.

So color us skeptical of this prediction from Schumer: “We’re going to keep the Senate, and maybe gain a seat or two.” That would mean, with the exception of West Virginia, Democrats keep all of their seats blue and potentially knock off GOP incumbents in states like Texas and Florida. There’s no sign at all this will happen, of course, but Schumer needs to keep his colleagues and donors engaged.

Schumer is traveling to the battleground states himself; he’s fresh off a fundraising trip to Pennsylvania with Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.). Schumer is also urging his in-cycle members to highlight the implementation of some of the big Democratic legislative achievements from the last Congress, including expanded broadband access in rural areas and new infrastructure projects.

“We’re not going to win those rural counties, but we’re going to lose them by less,” Schumer said. “For a president to say we’re implementing, it’s too broad. But for Bob Casey to say we’re doing the Susquehanna Bridge, or for Jacky Rosen to say for the first time the dream of Nevada to get high-speed rail from L.A. to Las Vegas… is incredible.”

But in several of the battlegrounds, especially Montana and Ohio, Democratic Senate victories will depend on split-ticket voting. Election analysts are divided on whether this phenomenon is as prevalent as it once was. Yet for Schumer’s theory of the case to prove true, that’s exactly what he’ll need in order to hang onto his majority.

Jet fumes: In the meantime, today is the Senate’s last day in session before the August recess, and the fly-out vote centers on the doomed-to-fail tax bill. As we wrote in Wednesday’s Midday edition, Schumer told us that his in-cycle incumbents are “very excited” at the chance to vote on it — regardless of the outcome.

“Our 2024-ers were very excited about having a vote on this bill — win or lose,” Schumer told us. “They’d rather win, we’d all rather win. But even losing is a benefit.”

Breaking news: The House Republican leadership won’t bring up the children’s online safety bill that the Senate passed with 91 votes on Tuesday.

A House GOP leadership aide told us this about KOSA: “We’ve heard concerns across our Conference and the Senate bill cannot be brought up in its current form.”

This is a big blow to the effort, which is spearheaded by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). And it comes just a week after Speaker Mike Johnson told us he’d “like to get [KOSA] done.”

— Andrew Desiderio, Max Cohen and John Bresnahan

BACK TO THE FUTURE

It’s 2016 all over again following Trump’s racist attacks on Harris

President Donald Trump’s stunning decision on Wednesday to question Vice President Kamala Harris’ racial and ethnic identity and berate Black journalists during a convention of Black journalists has brought Republicans right back to a familiar — and uncomfortable — place.

Senate Republicans immediately shifted back to 2016 campaign mode for dealing with Trump’s racist or inflammatory comments — deny, defer and depart as quickly as possible.

Trump also suggested that Harris, who was elected three times to statewide office in California, was a “DEI hire” — language that Speaker Mike Johnson and NRCC Chair Richard Hudson urged their rank-and-file colleagues to avoid.

At a sorority event in Houston on Wednesday night, Harris dismissed Trump’s remarks as grounded in “divisiveness” and “disrespect.”

“The American people deserve better,” Harris said. “The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth. A leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts. We deserve a leader who understands our differences do not divide us. They are an essential source of our strength.”

Yet the Trump campaign continued to launch similar attacks throughout Wednesday night. At a Harrisburg, Pa., rally, Trump’s campaign projected a story from Business Insider that celebrated Harris as being the first Indian-American senator. Harris identifies as both Indian and Black.

Several rally speakers also mispronounced Harris’ first name, a frequent pattern for GOP pols. Trump himself, however, didn’t repeat his earlier remarks. On Tuesday, Trump claimed Harris “doesn’t like Jewish people” despite the fact that her husband is Jewish.

Some of the few Senate Republicans who did acknowledge they were aware of Trump’s NABJ remarks downplayed them, suggesting Trump was being sarcastic.

A couple of Republicans lightly criticized Trump, knowing that nothing infuriates the former president and his allies as much as criticism from within the party. Only one Senate GOP hopeful — former Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan, who is running for Senate against a Black woman candidate in a blue state — condemned Trump’s remarks.

“The president speaks for himself,” Senate Republican Conference Chair John Barrasso repeated five different times. “I’m going to continue to talk about her record, and I think her record helps Republicans win.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) was even more succinct: “Focus on policy… All we’ve got to do is focus on policy… Focus on policy… Focus on policy… Focus on policy. That’s what the American people want and where we win… We should be focusing on policy… Focus on policy.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) clearly didn’t like what he heard from Trump but was also cautious in his criticism.

“My comment is any time we’re commenting on anything but this Biden administration’s failed economy, failed border, failed national security, we’re not gaining ground,” Tillis said. When asked whether Trump should apologize, Tills added “I’ll leave that to President Trump.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), one of the few outspoken Trump critics inside the party, was dismayed by the whole episode:

— John Bresnahan, Max Cohen and Jake Sherman

PRIMARY SEASON

Good’s recount day, what to watch in Tennessee primaries

It’s recount day for House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.). We’ve been covering Good’s closely watched primary all year, and we expect the race will finally come to an end today.

Election officials are expected to meet early in the morning and will complete the recount by the end of Thursday. The recount will take place across 24 localities in Virginia’s 5th District.

Good filed for a recount earlier this month after the Virginia State Board of Elections certified state Sen. John McGuire’s victory over the incumbent. McGuire won by roughly 375 votes, which falls within the 1% margin to allow a recount to be requested.

The recount cost is expected to be around $96,500, according to local reports.

Good’s campaign declined to comment.

McGuire’s campaign called the recount effort “frivolous” and questioned whether Good had the funds to pay for it.

“We expect a fair and open process that will reaffirm John McGuire’s victory over Bob Good,” said Sean Brown, McGuire’s spokesperson.

We’re also told that Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin is planning to host a fundraiser for McGuire this month, a sign that most elected officials don’t see Good reversing his loss.

Good plans to step down as HFC chair if he loses his recount. As we reported before, the jockeying to replace him has already started.

Tracking Tennessee: We’re also closely monitoring the Tennessee primaries tonight.

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), a freshman member of the Freedom Caucus, is facing a primary challenge in the 5th District from Nashville Metro Council member Courtney Johnston. Ogles is planning to run for HFC chair if Good steps down.

Ogles has come under scrutiny for embellishing his resume and misreporting a loan on his campaign finance reports. Johnston, who has a significant fundraising advantage, has been hitting Ogles on these controversies and accusing him of contributing to chaos in Congress instead of governing.

Ogles’ conservative allies are worried that the race is closer than expected. If the freshman loses, it would be another blow to the Freedom Caucus. The conservative group is expected to lose its chair and has whiffed in its attempts this cycle to knock off GOP incumbents they don’t see as conservative enough.

We wrote about the dynamics of this race earlier this week.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) is also facing a primary challenger in Tres Wittum, but we don’t expect too much trouble here. Wittum is a former state Senate research analyst who ran against Ogles in the 5th District primary in 2022. In that race, Wittum only took 0.7% of the vote.

— Mica Soellner

AD WATCH

News: Republican Voters Against Trump launches $3.5M ad campaign

Republican Voters Against Trump is launching a $3.5 million swing state ad campaign in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania featuring testimonies of Americans who backed former President Donald Trump but are now supporting Vice President Kamala Harris.

The ad campaign will feature dozens of billboards and five separate digital ads.

The direct-to-camera digital ads from former Trump supporters lend a more personal angle compared to many ads we’ve seen in the 2024 presidential contest.

One Pennsylvania resident says Trump is “mentally unfit for office” and he can’t ever vote for him again. A Michigan voter says Trump’s desire for retribution in a second term scares him. A Wisconsin voter says he’s never voted for a Democrat before, but Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6 was the final straw for him.

And in another ad, a Virginian who voted for Trump twice says she can’t support him because he’s a criminal who’s only running to avoid jail.

Here are some examples of some billboards running:

Democrats have long targeted Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin as their “Blue Wall” heading into the November election. But recent polling has shown Harris running ahead of where President Joe Biden was in Sun Belt states like Nevada, Arizona and Georgia, potentially expanding the map.

— Max Cohen

THE CAMPAIGN

First in Punchbowl News AM: Speaker Mike Johnson transferred an additional $2.5 million to the National Republican Congressional Committee in July. Johnson has now raised more than $18.5 million for the NRCC since being elected speaker nine months ago.

Here’s more from Johnson: “House Republicans are doubling down on offense to grow our majority and defeat Democrat incumbents and candidates who support failed Biden-Harris policies that have opened our border, wrecked our economy, and invited chaos around the world.”

Throughout August, Johnson will host events and raise money for candidates across more than 20 states around the country as he tries to grow the GOP’s razor-thin majority, we’re told.

News: Sen. Bob Casey’s (D-Pa.) campaign is running a new ad attacking Republican Dave McCormick over his business deals in China. The ad connects McCormick’s investments in China to the fentanyl crisis hitting American communities.

Casey has consistently led in public polls of the race over McCormick, who unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination for Senate in 2022. Back then, McCormick’s lengthy business record as former head of hedge fund Bridgewater was a liability in his race.

— Melanie Zanona and Max Cohen

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