Trump's Pick of JD Vance, A Pro-Russia Extremist, Was A Huge Mistake
Join Me and Anderson Clayton This Friday in Raleigh, North Carolina!
Happy Tuesday all. Got a few things for you today:
Vance, The Extremist - Last night I sent a “quick take” on JD Vance to our paid subscribers. I encourage everyone to head there to get my initial take on the Vance pick and what it means for us. It includes videos of Vance that need to be seen to be believed. The bottom line:
Tonight’s quick take is on JD Vance. I am not surprised Trump picked Vance. Of all the finalists he is most like Trump. This wasn’t a “balance” pick, or an olive branch to non-MAGA Republicans and independents, or an attempt to lower the temperature - it was an in-your-face-MAGA, project 2025-backing, Putin-loving pick.
Vance comes out of the pro-Putin, pro-oligarch, Handmaid’s Tale wing of the GOP. He was the most extreme candidate on the VP short list. The pick was a confirmation of the extraordinary threat Trump is to our democracy, our rights and freedoms, our way of life and the American-led global system that has kept us free, safe and prosperous for generations. While the Biden campaign has paused their battleground ads for a few days, here’s a reminder of what was running in the battleground on Saturday - Putin’s “Lap Dog.” Please watch this ad. It is very good and even more relevant after Vance’s pick.
NBC News has a story this morning which can only be read as the Trump campaign staff already trashing the Vance choice and blaming it on Trump’s sons:
MILWAUKEE — With the clock ticking to the Republican National Convention last week, Donald Trump met privately to discuss his running mate search with two of his closest advisers: his sons.
The conversation quickly turned tense when the former president indicated that he was leaning toward Doug Burgum, until recently the largely unknown governor of North Dakota — but someone whose low-maintenance, no-drama personality would never threaten to outshine Trump.
That’s when Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump chimed in.
“Don Jr. and Eric went bats--- crazy: ‘Why would you do something so stupid? He offers us nothing,’” a longtime Republican operative familiar with the discussion told NBC News.
“They were basically all like ‘JD, JD, JD,’” the operative said.
Trump ratified his sons’ recommendation here Monday, selecting Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his vice presidential candidate. Trump called Vance with the news 20 minutes before announcing it on social media, a source familiar with the call said.
In choosing Vance, Trump made a different calculation than he did in 2016 and leaned fully into his MAGA base. Back then, he looked to his daughter and her husband — the more establishment-friendly Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner — for strategic advice. This time, his red meat-throwing sons have a more central role. And instead of going with a longtime traditional Republican like Mike Pence, Trump chose the MAGA warrior Vance.
The pick of “MAGA warrior Vance” is a confirmation of the ugliness and threat of MAGA. In my view this was a serious political mistake and missed opportunity for Trump, and makes it more likely we can win this election. Work hard this week to educate your networks on what Vance means for the GOP ticket and all of us. Back to work all…….
Biden’s NBC News Interview - Last night NBC aired an interview with President Biden that is well worth watching. You can catch it below, and I encourage you to share with your networks.
Wherever you are on the whether the President should keep running, there is no question that since the debate the President has been hustling, doing many public events, holding a major press conference, conducting other interviews, leading the world at NATO, Presidenting. By contrast, Trump has spoken at public events only three times since June 27th, and done no interviews with non-right wing media. I’m not sure there has been a period in the modern history of American politics where a major candidate for President has been so absent and silent for so long. I continue to believe that Trump’s terrible debate performance spooked his campaign, and they have been doing everything they can to keep him from the public since.
Donald Trump is weak not strong. He made a huge mistake in picking Vance. His agenda is extreme and deeply unpopular. He is a rapist, fraudster, traitor and felon. We can and should win this election if we all keep working hard.
More Data Showing How Much Harris Is Bringing To The Ticket. She Needs A Much Higher Profile - In new NYT polls of PA and VA we once again see VP Harris bringing a great deal of strength to the ticket:
Whatever happens in the days ahead one thing is clear - we need to be seeing and hearing much more from Vice President Kamala Harris.
Listening To MAGA This Week - I assume most of you don’t spend a lot of time listening to MAGA. But it is important to hear and see them, to understand their arguments so we can be more effective in our advocacy for our ticket and Democrats more broadly. This week I will be sharing one video a day of one of their speakers so you can check in with MAGA Summer 2024 without having to watch the Convention itself. Here’s Senator Tim Scott last night. It is worth watching.
Making July Count/We Cannot Let Up/Do More and Worry Less - Friends, we just did a remarkable job together here making June count. In five weeks from late May to June 30th we raised over $1m for our candidates and party committees. Many of you have been out there hustling for candidates, writing postcards, canvassing, calling and texting. We launched our Winning the House campaign which brought in more $500,000 for our 12 Hopium-endorsed candidates with the best opportunity to flip seats and help us take back the House. We added the blue dot in Nebraska to our “checkmate” state strategy, one designed to get us to 270 electoral college votes and win the election. We raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Biden-Harris, including more than $100,000 in the days after the debate. When called once again the Hopium community answered. That’s why we’ve launched a new campaign to “Make July Count” with new July 31st fundraising goals.
We cannot let up now, not for a moment. We are deep into the 2024 election and while it is summer, and we are not all on same page today, we cannot stop working to make the election everything we want it to be. So please do something this week to support this new campaign, and be on the look out for many more interviews of our endorsed House candidates in the coming days. Trying to get the remaining eight done by our Convention.
We can do this people!
Biden-Harris - $583,000 today, $650,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Winning The House - $527,000 today, $600,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. We’ve also raised more then $42,000 into the individual House campaigns (you can either give to all 12 or each one individually)
North Carolina - $320,000 today, $400,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton
Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $290,000 today, $350,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with Ruben Gallego
Nebraska/Blue Dot - $119,000 today, $150,000 goal- Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb
Here’s how you can do even more:
Watch our interviews with Janelle Bynum (OR-5), George Whitesides (CA-27), Kirsten Engel (AZ-06) and Andrei Cherny (AZ-01)
Volunteer for the Biden-Harris campaign - their volunteer program is really ratcheting up - check it out and sign up for a shift of calls into the battlegrounds today!
Join me and Anderson Clayton in Raleigh on Friday, July 19th by donating to the NCDP Unity Dinner and signing up here
Commit to Vote on Day 1 and get everyone you know to join you
Finally help me spread Hopium and grow this plucky community. Sign others up to be a Hopium subscriber at this link. Note that options for group and gift subscriptions are available to those who want to bring friends and colleagues into the Hopium community. Click on the group and gift tabs here to learn more. To update your payment information or check your renewal status follow these instructions from Substack. Let’s keep the Hopium flowing and our community growing!
Our candidates, clockwise, Janelle Bynum (OR-5), Will Rollins (CA-41), Sue Altman (NJ-07) and Tony Vargas (NE-02).
Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon
The Biden-Harris campaign just sent our a national email asking for volunteers and provided this link for folks to sign up - https://events.democrats.org/?utm_source=jb_em_do_20240716_b3_tbh_tier1_do_do_fl_na-ac&show_all_events=true&tag_ids=24177&link_id=1&can_id=a819c99e1892a298e2578835a0a7f857&email_referrer=email_2385789___from_2922724&email_subject=volunteer-with-team-biden-harris-this-week
Here’s a little hopium of my own to share. This morning I got an email from “postcards to swing states” . They are pausing sign-up for the moment because of the overwhelming number of volunteers who have reached out and they need to catch up. In the last two weeks alone over 19,000 volunteers have requested. 5.5 million postcards. In early August, they will resume taking orders with a goal of 29 million postcards to be sent out. Maybe this kind of news isn’t reported in the media or reflected in the polls but it’s a wonderful thing to see such an amazing amount of enthusiasm in a grassroots organization.