Joe has had Crenshaw on twice, but not seen this one.
Dipped in a little here and there, same on the other one (does he do anything that isn't 2½ hours?). I came with the intention of hating Crenshaw, but I didn't. I hate that ad he did though.
First debate is on Tuesday, with Chris Wallace of Fox moderating.
Topics (15 mins each): - The Trump and Biden Records - The Supreme Court - Covid-19 - The Economy - Race and Violence in our Cities - The Integrity of the Election
If you want to engage more, you can register with Fox and cheer on your favourite. It's something designed for "second-screen viewers", which I guess includes everyone on here. Apparently, more than 70% were using a second screen to look things up during the 2016 debates, which will be higher now, so Fox is tapping into that to try to keep those viewers on both screens.
You want a different kind of political ad? Dan Crenshaw is a well known ex-military Congressman who lost an eye in Afghanistan and is spoken about as a future Presidential candidate. He has made a joint ad with a few wannabe Representatives from Texas, which references some movies. It's certainly eye-catching - he jumps out of a plane and we discover that his new eye is bionic. Some people have picked on the English voice that gives the instructions, and there is the question of why he needs to fly to Wesley Hunt, who is in the next District. Wesley lays on the full movie-actor shtick. A lot of people seem to like it, though we learn nothing about anyone's policies.
The Biden campaign has a lot of money at just the right time. After trailing Trump's receipts in July, they pulled in $364m in August, smashing the monthly record, helped by the Kamala unveiling. September was also going well and then, on the Sunday after Ginsburg's death, they raised $100m in one day.
The Trump campaign still seemed to have plenty. They still had $325m on hand at the end of August, compared with Biden's $466m. Both sides indicated that they had reserved over $200m of TV ads over the next two months. But Trump has been pulling ads in State after State. Now he has cancelled them in all the Swing States except Arizona (reinstated after being off for a while), Georgia and Florida. So the whole Rust Belt, the most crucial region, is left out. He spent $18m on TV ads last week, to Biden's $46m, with both targeting Florida in particular.
There are concerns that Donald's campaign is running out of money, though it could be that they are just spending it differently. They are significantly outspending Biden online on Google and Facebook ads and, of course, they are running much more of a traditional campaign, getting out to as many rallies as possible. This week, he campaigned in Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida and Virginia, while Biden only got to Wisconsin and North Carolina. He shines at those mass rallies, whereas it suits Joe to use Covid as a reason to keep out of trouble as much as possible. The underdog always needs to stir things up, whereas the favourite wants everything to stay calm, and there's no doubt that Trump is the underdog at this stage.
They are still producing terrible ads like this:
On the other hand, I think this one by Pence is powerful. It doesn't seem to be on YouTube, but it's on his Twitter.
Trump interviewed four candidates in 2018 and it was clear that Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett (the only woman interviewed) were the top two. Barrett is the hot favourite this time, but she is known for her very strong conservative and religious views (Catholic) and it seems that Barbara Lagoa, a Cuban-American from Florida, is being considered as an alternative as her appointment could help Trump in the election, plus she is likely to pass approval by the Senate more easily. Both are young (48 & 52) so, if the Republicans win this battle, they could have a stranglehold on the Court for decades. Democrats are already planning strategies to counteract this, such as increasing the number of Supreme Court Justices and pressing ahead with granting full representation to Puerto Rico and DC, thereby securing their hold on the legislature.
Trump actually managed to appear Presidential for once when he was told about Ruth Ginsberg's death.
It's the calm before the storm - all Hell is going to break loose over filling this vacancy. Filling the Supreme Court is one of the biggest legacies a President can leave, with the effect lasting for decades. Mitch McConnell managed to prevent Obama from filling a Supreme Court vacancy in the last year of his Presidency on the pretext that "the American people should have a voice" in the selection. Now the boot is on the other foot, and everyone will take the opposite position to the one they expressed four years ago. This is about to get tasty.
McConnell has already said that he intends to fill the vacancy before the election and Chuck Schumer has tweeted Mitch's exact words from 2016:
Robert Redfield, the Director of the CDC, said on Wednesday that wearing a facemask provides you with more protection against catching Covid than taking a vaccine.
He also said a vaccine won't be generally available for the public until at least mid 2021.
Trump then flat out said the Director was wrong on both points.
Whatever about the scientific issues, this is terrible politically for The President to be at war with his own scientists. He has had opportunities to look good on the virus, but he keeps blowing it.
Oh boy! The Washington Post is reporting that the US Postal Service was planning to send five reusable masks to every residential address back in April, but was prevented from doing so directly by the White House - to avoid spreading alarm.
So Bob Woodward’s revelation that Trump knew how bad the virus is and did nothing about it is false - in fact he knew about it and took active steps to prevent it being addressed.
There was a discussion yesterday on Fox about violence in US cities that ended very oddly.
Former Speaker (and disappointed Trump VP candidate) Newt Gingrich brought George Soros into it and was stamped on by the Fox representatives, Melissa Francis (Fox anchor and former child star on Little House On The Prairie) and Marie Harf (former Kerry and Obama aide and regular token liberal Fox contributor).
There was an awkward silence while Harris Faulkner received some off-screen instructions to close it down.
There's a new bronze statue of Melania in Slovenia. A previous wooden version was badly burned, but the sorely-missed structure has now been replaced with one that is more durable.
Click to see full-size image.
Bronze Melania
It's a beautiful piece, though not as lifelike as the wooden one:
Trump faced questions from Pennsylvanian voters last night in an ABC town hall chaired by George Stephanopoulos (White House advisor to Bill Clinton before his TV career).
Stephanopoulos fact-checked some of Trump's dodgy answers live, which was fair, as they were misleading. The reporting on the event has highlighted Trump's poor answers, but it's also fair to say that the questions were supposed to be from undecided voters, but they generally seemed to be pretty anti (and unusually articulate).
Tim Kennedy @TimKennedyMMA On my podcast with @joerogan he offered to moderate a debate between @JoeBiden and @realDonaldTrump It would be four hours with no live audience. Just the two candidates, cameras, and their vision of how to move this country forward. Who wants this? #debates #Election2020
Excellent. Steve Doocy's withdrawal of the invitation was hilarious, though it was strange that it seemed to take Brian Kilmeade by surprise. It had been discussed earlier and Doocy was clearly acting under orders in shafting it, so I don't know why Kilmeade wasn't aware.
Donald has had a few long interviews on Fox lately - Harris Faulkner, Chris Wallace, Laura Ingraham, Janine Pirro, Fox & Friends. There may have been others that I missed; certainly he has often dialled into Hannity. In fairness, Faulkner and Wallace gave him a tough time but the rest were soft.
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