Morning Report — Election 2024: Decision time

In today’s issue:

• Go time for Harris, Trump
• GOP eyes transition plans
• North Korean troops are in Russia
• Take our Morning Report quiz!

If there are 17 people out there who have not made up their minds to vote, or how to vote, Vice President Harris and former President Trump are determined to break their bitter deadlock by converting those fence-sitters into election participants. 

If there’s a shared battle plan afoot, it involves selling competing narratives describing either future disaster or sunny prosperity just over the horizon. They are raising the stakes, using repetition and trying to drill down into the angst-filled lives of the majority of Americans who believe the country is on the wrong track. 

Harris, speaking at length Wednesday during a CNN town hall, criticized the former president and affirmed a question about whether he’s a fascist. She conceded to an audience member that she has flaws, which she did not detail, and followed with an implied contrast with Trump to emphasize a personal trait she touts as a strength.

Harris said she was “certainly not perfect.”

“I may not be quick to have the answer as soon as you ask it about a specific policy issue sometimes because I’m going to want to research it. I’m going to want to study it,” she said. “I’m kind of a nerd sometimes, I confess. And some might call that a weakness, especially if you’re in an interview.”

Trump declined both a second debate and an invitation from CNN to participate in a similar forum.

The Hill: Four takeaways from Harris’s town hall on CNN. 

The vice president faces questions about her campaign strategy in the final stretch. Do her broadcast interviews this week — in prime time on cable and on Telemundo — close the deal with wishy-washy not-yet-voters? 

Does it make sense for her to fly to Houston on Friday to talk about Texas’s restrictive abortion law, or would Harris’s diminishing time on the trail be better spent barnstorming in a swing state instead of a red state? The campaign hopes that Harris will be heard everywhere, going viral and making headlines by talking about everything, including her opponent, all at once.

Trump was in rural Georgia on Wednesday for a friendly “Ballots and Believers” town hall aimed at the evangelical base of the GOP, followed by a rally in suburban Gwinnett County on the northern edge of Atlanta.

“In many ways, it’s sad, because we’re down to 12 days,” he told supporters. “We’ve been doing this together for nine years, and it’s down to 12 days. We had the biggest rallies, the most beautiful people, the most — It’s just been an amazing thing. There’s never been anything like it in the history of the country. I don’t think there’s been anything like it even in the history of the world.”

The former president will be in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan and Pennsylvania again this week, and checkmate his opponent with his own Friday visit to Texas to focus on border security. His major media sit-down will be with podcaster Joe Rogan, who has the No. 1 show in the world with millions of followers, particularly young men.  

The Hill: Harris and Trump are tied in Georgia and neck and neck in Arizona and North Carolina, according to the latest survey from the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. 

Harris will return today to Georgia — accompanied by former President Obama and Bruce Springsteen. Obama lost the state in 2008 to GOP nominee John McCain and to Mitt Romney in 2012. Trump captured the Peach State in 2016, but narrowly lost to President Biden in a 2020 election in which Georgia voters also sent two Democrats to the Senate. Biden’s victory was credited in part to a growing number of non-white voters in the Atlanta suburbs who loosened more than a quarter of a century’s GOP dominance in Georgia’s presidential races.

Jim Messina, Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, told The Hill that Harris’s campaign is focused on turning out existing supporters and persuading new supporters to join an evolving coalition.

“There’s a stupid argument in my party that says you either turn your voters out or you persuade. The campaigns that win at the presidential level do both, and that is the campaign that Kamala Harris has built,” he said. 

The Hill: Democrats say Harris holds several campaign advantages over Trump.   

Even Democrats who support Harris and are working nonstop to elect her concede voters know less about her or what she would do as president. Trump, whose leadership style has been controversial and chronicled for a decade, has spent months filling in voters’ blanks about Harris with a narrative of his own.

The vice president is at heart a lawyer who measures change in increments. Her staff calls her “super pragmatic,” The New York Times reports. She is an institutionalist at a time when many voters say they want change. She concedes her positions on some complicated issues have shifted with time and the law, while her opponent insists his aims never change: Make America Great Again. 

SMART TAKE WITH THE HILL’S BOB CUSACK:

Some Democrats have called Trump’s recent visits to a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania and a Bronx barber shop “stunts.”

Whatever you want to call them, they worked. And those two public appearances have gotten a fair amount of attention well after they were over. That’s a credit to Trump and his campaign team.

A month ago, Trump was unraveling. He had lost the debate to Harris and was stuck. Now she is the one searching for that elusive political momentum.

Can Harris still win? Absolutely. But she won’t without a strong finish.

Harris’s media blitz has not worked. None of the appearances were disastrous, though they were guarded.

Many presidential nominees open up after they lose, including Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney and Bob Dole. And what inevitably happens is people then ask: Where was this before?

Love him or hate him, voters know what makes Trump tick. Many don’t know Harris and that’s at least partly on her. She needs to drop the talking points and let it fly. Time is running out on her.

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY:

▪ Hundreds more babies died than expected in the year and a half after the Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade in 2022, raising questions about the ripple effects of the ruling on maternal and child health.

▪ Heightened security will be obvious in Washington, D.C., and on Capitol Hill from Election Day through January’s inauguration period.

▪ Boeing machinists on Wednesday rejected the company’s latest contract proposal, continuing their nearly six-week strike and further complicating the aerospace giant’s path to a more stable future.

LEADING THE DAY

© The Associated Press | J. Scott Applewhite

TRANSITION WATCH: House and Senate Republicans are setting the table for what they hope — and increasingly expect — to be unified GOP rule of the White House and Congress after the election. Republican leaders in both chambers have mapped out an agenda for Trump’s first 100 days, and they expect to move quickly on a massive budget reconciliation package that would reform the tax code, cut niche tax credits, lower corporate and individual tax rates and extend the expiring child tax credit.

But The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports GOP members are divided over whether the package should include immigration and border security reforms, with House conservatives favoring the idea and Senate Republicans warning those proposals won’t pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian. Republican senators also said they intend to quickly confirm Trump’s Cabinet and expect members of their ranks, including Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Sen. Bill Hagerty (Tenn.), to head key federal departments and agencies in a Trump administration. 

“A lot of the House committees have been putting work in on this, some are further along than others,” said a Senate GOP aide. “Efforts are underway. Hitting the ground running is something everyone wants to be able to do.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, wrote to Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (Ohio), about reports they may not heed transition deadlines and protocols, which are specified in law to begin well before Election Day. Howard Lutnick, the Wall Street CEO heading up Trump’s transition operation, is facing accusations that he is improperly mixing his business interests with his duties standing up a potential administration.

ON THE ISSUES: Harris and Trump have both vowed to protect Social Security, but experts say both of their campaign platforms fall short of specific solutions for a program that faces threats to funding in roughly a decade.

Harris and Trump are offering a stark contrast for voters when it comes to policies on fighting climate change, developing energy and protecting the environment. 

On immigration, the two candidates have differing policies — from deportation to pathways to citizenship.

2024 CAMPAIGN ROUNDUP:

Nebraska: Republicans are upset that the Senate race to reelect incumbent Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) is close against independent challenger Dan Osborn, forcing the GOP and outside groups to spend precious resources that could be used elsewhere as Republicans battle to pick up enough Senate seats to capture the majority. 

“Whack-a-mole” is the way state and local election officials describe their attempts to combat a rush of viral falsehoods and conspiracy theories about the election and voting circulated primarily by GOP skeptics and myth-makers. What is true: Many independent investigations found no widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines four years ago, and each of the battleground states where Trump disputed his 2020 loss affirmed Democrat Joe Biden’s win. “I have not seen that,” the former president conceded Monday in North Carolina when asked if he detected election cheating amid this cycle’s early voting. 

The former president and his allies have spent the last four years laying the groundwork for a more organized, better funded and far broader effort to contest the outcome if the vote doesn’t go his way.

Elon Musk’s super PAC has been warned by the Justice Department, which wrote to the billionaire’s America PAC to say its $1 million daily giveaway in battleground states tied to increasing voter registrations may run afoul of federal law. Musk, a Trump supporter, recently announced the giveaway in swing state Pennsylvania.   

A former deputy Palm Beach County sheriff who fled to Moscow is working directly with Russian military intelligence to create deepfakes and circulate misinformation that targets Harris’s campaign.

WHERE AND WHEN

• The House will convene a pro forma session at 11 a.m. Friday. The Senate will hold a pro forma session Friday at 10:30 a.m.
• The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m. Biden will depart the White House this afternoon for Phoenix and remain overnight.
• Candidate schedules this week: Harris today will hold a Clarkston, Ga., rally near Atlanta. On Friday, Harris will headline an event in Houston with a focus on her opposition to restrictive abortion laws, such as in Texas, and she will be interviewed by University of Houston professor and podcaster Brené Brown. On Saturday, Harris plans a get-out-the-vote rally in Michigan accompanied by Michelle Obama. Trump today will campaign in Tempe, Ariz., and Las Vegas. On Friday, Trump will be interviewed by podcaster Joe Rogan. Trump also will be in Austin, Texas, for a campaign event about border security at midday and hold an evening rally in Traverse City, Mich. On Saturday, he’ll campaign at noon in Novi, Mich., and hold a rally in State College, Pa. On Sunday, Trump will stage a New York City campaign event in Madison Square Garden at 5 p.m. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) today will be in Durham, N.C., Greenville, N.C., and headline a rally in Wilmington, N.C. He will travel to Philadelphia tonight. On Saturday, Walz will campaign in Arizona. On Sunday, the governor will campaign in Las Vegas. Today, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) will deliver remarks in Waterford, Mich., and participate in a NewsNation town hall from Detroit at 8 p.m. ET, live-streamed on X. On Friday afternoon, Vance will campaign in Raeford, N.C., and hold an evening event in Monroe, N.C.

ZOOM IN

© The Associated Press | Gene J. Puskar

NEWS YOU CAN USE:

🏠 Sales of existing homes in the U.S. are on track for the worst year since 1995 — for the second year in a row, as persistently high home prices and mortgage rates restrict potential homebuyers. 

🩺 Lawmakers and physicians are growing anxious for COVID-era telemedicine flexibilities to be extended for a third time, writes The Hill’s Joseph Choi. While federal regulators seem to be moving in that direction, Congress still has questions.

🎓 Colleges and universities find themselves increasingly trapped with the politics of the state where they reside, The Hill’s Lexi Lonas Cochran reports. As state legislatures pass sweeping measures on everything from abortion to LGBTQ rights, a full quarter of students, representing both sides of the aisle, are writing off schools simply based on their location. 

💳 Federal regulators on Wednesday ordered Goldman Sachs and Apple to pay more than $89 million in combined penalties over their handling of their credit-card business, affecting hundreds of thousands of Apple Card users.

ELSEWHERE

© The Associated Press | Mohammed Hajjar

AID FOR GAZA: Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed Israeli officials on the need to increase the flow of aid into Gaza, he told reporters in Tel Aviv on Wednesday. The comments come a day after Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Blinken said he discussed the “urgent and sustained steps” required for Israel to improve humanitarian conditions in the enclave.

“I can report that there’s progress made, which is good, but more progress needs to be made, and most critically, it needs to be sustained,” Blinken said, referring to aid flow into Gaza.

Blinken also said Netanyahu told him that Israel does not plan to establish a permanent presence in Gaza after the war ends. Meanwhile, Gaza’s civil defense, which conducts search and rescue operations, pulled out of northern Gaza after threats from Israeli forces. United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said Wednesday that “people suffering under the ongoing Israeli siege in North Gaza are rapidly exhausting all available means for their survival.”

▪ The New York Times: The Israeli military struck targets in the Lebanese port city of Tyre on Wednesday, the latest phase of a bombardment campaign against Hezbollah.

▪ Reuters: The Israeli military on Wednesday alleged that six Palestinian Al Jazeera reporters in Gaza were also members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad. The Qatari network rejected the allegations as an attempt to silence journalists.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed that North Korean troops are in Russia, possibly to fight Ukraine. Austin called the development “very serious” and suggested that Russia may be in more dire straits in its war with its neighbor than previously known.

Ukraine is preparing as though combating North Korea in its territory will be inevitable, according to The Associated Press. Ukraine’s “I Want to Live” project, a hotline encouraging Russian soldiers to surrender, published a video in Korean on Wednesday calling for North Korean soldiers to give up.

▪ The Hill: House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio) on Wednesday said the U.S. should consider taking “direct military action” if North Korean troops enter the war in Ukraine, following the revelation that thousands of soldiers from the isolated country are in Russia.

▪ The Washington Post: With the hosting of the annual BRICS summit falling on Russia’s shoulders this year, President Vladimir Putin is flaunting his nation’s standing on the world stage, despite Western efforts to ostracize him since the invasion of Ukraine.

▪ The Hill: Mexico’s new president announced an agriculture plan that could make the country’s food production and distribution look a lot more like it did in the 1980s.

OPINION 

■ How to end the war in Gaza ‘once and for all’? by Eric R. Mandel, opinion contributor, The Hill.

■ Say goodbye to cheaper rent and airfares, by Conor Sen, columnist, Bloomberg Opinion.

THE CLOSER

© The Associated Press | Susan Walsh

Take Our Morning Report Quiz

And finally … It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for this week’s Morning Report Quiz! Inspired by the anniversary of Robert Bork’s Supreme Court nomination, we’re eager for some smart guesses about nominations to the high court.

Be sure to email your responses to asimendinger@thehill.com and kkarisch@thehill.com — please add “Quiz” to your subject line. Winners who submit correct answers will enjoy some richly deserved newsletter fame on Friday.

Which president appointed the most Supreme Court justices?

1. Donald Trump
2. Ronald Reagan
3. George Washington
4. Franklin D. Roosevelt

When did the Supreme Court expand to nine justices?

1. 1933
2. 1799
3. 1964
4. 1869

How many women have served on the Supreme Court?

1. Four
2. Six
3. Ten
4. Two

Which of these Supreme Court confirmation processes did Biden — a longtime member of the Senate Judiciary Committee — not take part in?

1. Ruth Bader Ginsburg
2. Clarence Thomas
3. Lewis F. Powell Jr. 
4. Robert Bork

Stay Engaged 

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