Donald J. Trump plans to name Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (pictured) and Tulsi Gabbard, who ran for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, as honorary presidential transition team co-chairs to help select Trump's policies and personnel, a Trump campaign senior advisor tells The New York Times.
TUESDAY 8/27/24
To Trial or Not to Trial – Once considered the strongest of myriad cases against ex-President Trump, The New York Times uses the word “moribund” to describe the Justice Department’s classified documents case since Federal Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed it in July under the argument that Jack Smith was not approved by Congress to be its special counsel. Smith on Monday filed with the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta to overturn Cannon’s ruling, which came like a MAGA celebration on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Smith is unlikely to be able to bring the case to trial before the November 5 presidential election, and many expect the case to end up in the Supreme Court anyway, where justices already ruled prior to Cannon’s ruling that a president has absolute immunity for all official acts.
If he wins a second term, Donald J. Trump certainly will fire Smith and close the case. But since President Biden stepped down from his re-election bid the chances that Trump will not have his own Justice Department in place next January have evened out, making it a bit more likely he could face trial for holding boxes of classified documents in Mar-a-Lago storage rooms and bathrooms.
--TL
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MONDAY 8/26/24
After the DNC – The Harris campaign has raised more than $540 million in the month or so since the vice president became the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Al Jazeera reports. Meanwhile, NPR senior political editor/correspondent Domenico Montenaro says Vice President Kamala Harris has the edge over former President Donald J. Trump in the Electoral College race, based on current polling, with leads in the crucial swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin and ties in Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada.
That’s based on Montenaro’s analysis of polling by FiveThirtyEight and The Hill/DDHQ.
No ceasefire… But this comes as negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza ended in Cairo Sunday with no deal, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. Israel has since launched a “pre-emptive” strike against Hezbollah targets early Monday after Israeli military officials warned Iran-backed militants were about to strike. Hamas, which did not participate in the Cairo talks, has objected to changes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu keeps making to July’s framework agreement.
And so it goes… A week after the Democratic National Convention refused to allow critics of Israel's war on Gaza to speak, the Harris campaign is stuck with the Biden administration’s refusal to use arms sanctions to force the Israeli government into an agreement with Hamas for release of hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza.
Then there’s the economy… The Consumer Price Index dropped below 3% last month, leading Wall Street and especially, the Biden-Harris administration, to anticipate next month’s meeting of the Federal Reserve as it is expected to finally lower interest rates.
At the Kansas City Federal Reserve’s annual Jackson Hole, Wyoming, conference last Friday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said, finally, “The time has come for policy to adjust,” (per The New York Times).
“The direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook and the balance of risks. We will do everything we can to support a strong labor market as we make further progress toward price stability.”
That “further progress” was accompanied last week by a discouraging Labor Department report that it had overestimated the number of jobs added in the year ending in March by 818,000 (during the previous decade, such annual updates added or subtracted, on average, 173,000 jobs, the NYT says).
Does this help Harris?... A Fed rate cut will be no “October surprise” but will be a potential September boost to the Harris campaign. That’s if voters feel the rate cut, which is expected to be between a quarter- and a half-point, and whether they associate any such good vibes to the current administration.
The current Fed rate ranges between 5.25% and 5.5%.
This good economic news has translated to an ever-steady bull market on Wall Street, but Donald J. Trump – who wants to grab control of the Fed if he wins a second term – has claimed he not only deserves credit for the bull market under his administration, but also that the current bull market is the result of Wall Street anticipating his win again in November.
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RFK Jr.’s Prez Bid – Now that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pulled out of the presidential race in swing states so he could endorse Donald J. Trump, the question is; What does he get from Trump in return? Kennedy’s withdrawal as an independent candidate answers the question, of course, of whether he was more a threat to Trump or to Kamala Harris.
It’s a question only pundits and pollsters who were trying to maintain some balance made – we have known for months that anti-vaxxer RFK Jr. would pull votes from Trump and not Biden-Harris.
Place your bets… Our prediction: RFK Jr. is US Surgeon General under a second Trump administration. Of course, if Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump doesn’t result in a win, we will never find out.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa