TONIGHT – The Democratic Party presidential ticket of VP Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz sit for their first joint interview on CNN at 9 pm Eastern with chief political correspondent and anchor Dana Bash.
THURSDAY 8/29/24
Federal Violation? – It was a prime opportunity for the Trump/Vance campaign: Take the former president to Arlington National Cemetery for a wreath-laying ceremony that would highlight the third anniversary of the tragic withdrawal from Afghanistan by the Biden/Harris administration, that resulted in the killing of 13 US service members. The Trump/Vance campaign posted a 21-second TikTok video of the ceremony that “likely violates” federal law prohibiting the use of military cemeteries for campaigning purposes, NPR, which scooped the story of the wreath-laying on Monday’s All Things Considered.
A cemetery official or officials tried to prevent Trump staffers from filming and photographing in a section where recent US military casualties are buried, a source told NPR, but campaign staffers verbally abused and pushed an official aside.
Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung responded to the cemetery staffer’s statement, saying; “We are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made.”
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Still a Tight Race – We hope you weren’t expecting to see any clarity in the Harris v. Trump presidential race after their parties’ conventions concluded. A new Emerson College/The Hill poll shows the two in a tight race, still, with Harris leading in three key states, but only within the margin of error.
In Georgia, Kamala Harris leads Donald J. Trump 49% to 48%; in Michigan, she leads 50% to 47% and in Nevada, she leads 49% to 48%.
Trump leads Harris in Arizona, 50% to 47%. He leads in North Carolina 49% to 48%, and in Wisconsin, 49% to 48%.
The two candidates are tied at 48% in Pennsylvania.
--TL
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WEDNESDAY 8/28/24
Reindicted, and We Knew You Would – After the Supreme Court granted the former president immunity for all official acts under his administration in a 6-3 ruling, a federal grand jury has reindicted Donald J. Trump on four felony charges connected to his efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election. The 36-page indictment issued by special counsel Jack Smith removes some specific allegations and removes those alleged co-conspirators from the original indictment, who were working in the administration at the time, according to Politico.
The original 45-page indictment issued in August 2023 was threatened by SCOTUS’ decision July 1.
The four counts of the new United States of America v. Donald J. Trump are…
Count 1: Conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Count 2: Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.
Count 3: Obstruction of an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding.
Count 4: Conspiracy against rights.
More to come from SCOTUS … Promoting her memoir, Lovely One in an interview Tuesday with Managing Editor Nora O’Donnell on CBS Evening News Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she’s as “prepared as anyone can be” for the November 5 presidential election to end up in the US Supreme Court.
“I was concerned about a system that appeared to provide immunity for one individual under one set of circumstances, when we have a criminal justice system that had ordinarily treated everyone the same,” she told O’Donnell.
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Zuckerberg Hedges His Bets – Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he was “pressured” by the Biden administration to censor some content around COVID-19 early during the pandemic. You know, the conspiracy theories, bleach-ingesting cures and “satirical content” allowed to run free in social media sites like his Facebook thanks to Section 230. The White House denies Zuckerberg’s claims.
“He knows it’s not true,” veteran tech journo Kara Swisher told CNN’s The Source Tuesday evening. Swisher says Zuckerberg is hedging his bets because Kamala Harris will forget about his assertion, but Donald J. Trump will not, and already has threatened him.
“I think he’s the most equivocating executive in tech,” Swisher said, noting he is ready to be “Trump adjacent” without going as far as X/Tesla/SpaceX chief Elon Musk if the ex-president wins the November election.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa