Former President Trump’s campaign launched a counter-programming effort in Chicago, Illinois with two big-name surrogates who hammered Vice President Kamala Harris on inflation and the economy as the Democratic National Convention gets underway in the city. 

“You can tell right now by what very few proposals that Kamala Harris has put on the table,” began Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., “She doesn’t have a clue.”

Johnson and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., stood in front of several charts that demonstrated rising prices on food and necessities at the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago on Monday. 

STRATEGISTS PIN GOP SENATE HOPES ON TRUMP BASE COMING ‘HOME’ AHEAD OF ELECTION

Both men highlighted their own experience running businesses in the private sector, also pointing to Trump’s history of doing so. “Donald Trump is a business guy who understands how businesses work,” said Scott. “Harris has no earthly idea how businesses work. Her vice president pick has no idea how businesses work.”

The senators slammed the current state of the economy, specifically hitting Harris and President Biden and their administration for facilitating inflation increases. 

Last week, Harris’ campaign announced a sweeping economic platform, which included a crackdown on corporate “price gouging” in the food industry. Harris revealed she plans to implement the first-ever federal ban on the practice. 

She would also drastically expand the child tax credit, allowing up to $6,000 during a child’s first year. Under a Harris presidency, she also said she would extend prescription drug price caps to everyone, rather than just senior citizens. 

Further, her plan included the establishment of a $40 billion fund for assistance to local governments to build more housing, as well as taking on landlords.

DEM SOCIALIST SENATOR RALLIES BEHIND HARRIS’ PRICE-FIXING PLAN: ‘IMPORTANT STEP FORWARD’

Harris recently rolled out her economic plan. (Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Her idea of having basically price controls—It’s never worked anywhere. This is pure socialism,” said Scott. “I want a free market. I want a bottom-up economy. I want capitalism. That’s what Trump stands for.”

Johnson blasted Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., for their misconceptions of how businesses operate in the private sector. “It’s very hard to run a successful business,” he said. 

According to Johnson, governmental leaders should have both an understanding of what it takes to run a business, as well as a sympathy for Americans creating and running businesses.

“That’s why there’s such a stark contrast in terms of the vision that President Trump has for this country versus Kamala Harris and Tim Walz,” he said. 

“Under Harris, here’s what’s going to happen: We’re going to see more inflation with her price control idea. We’re going to see a lot of shortages,” said Scott in an interview with Fox News Digital.  

DEM-ALIGNED GROUP HAMMERS HARRIS’ FORMER VP SHORTLISTER FOR TURNING ‘HIS BACK’ ON BLACK STUDENTS

Trump will be touring battleground states during the DNC.  (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

The Trump campaign previewed their intention to sap attention away from the DNC and provide their argument against Harris while she gets officially recognized as the Democratic nominee. “While we’re here at the DNC each day, president Trump and Senator Vance are doing battleground states,” said Trump campaign Senior Communication Advisor Brian Hughes.

He revealed the campaign will be hosting daily press conferences at the Trump hotel with various campaign surrogates, in part to demonstrate the contrast with Harris, whose campaign has made her nearly inaccessible to all media. 

“We’re not hearing a lot from Kamala Harris about these policies that she’s talking about,” Hughes pointed out. 

Johnson further told “the mainstream media, the legacy media, the corporate media, you better start asking questions because the American public deserve answers from Vice President Kamala Harris.”

In an interview with Fox News Digital, he predicted Harris will not hold any press conferences ahead of election day if she can get away with doing so. “The American people need to demand it. You’re running for the highest office in the land,” Johnson said. 

TOP CONSERVATIVE THINK TANK EXPOSES HOW DEMS HAVE ‘ABANDONED ORDINARY AMERICANS’ WITH MAJOR SHIFT TO LEFT

Signage at the United Center ahead of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Illinois, US, on Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024.  (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“It’s the bare minimum,” he added. “She didn’t go through a primary. She wasn’t vetted by the American people through that democratic process. She’s just been crowned the nominee, and now the mainstream media are going to just give her a free pass.”

“That’d be a travesty,” the Wisconsin Republican said. 

The two Republican senators further remarked on the noticeable absences of vulnerable Democratic senators from the DNC. “They know she’s toxic,” Scott told Fox News Digital of Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Jacky Rosen, D-Nev.

He claimed the senators are aware it would not help their campaign efforts to be pictured besides Harris. 

“If you look at the ads they’re running, those senators act like they were their best friends with Donald Trump. Because they know that Harris’ ideas are horrible for their state and for their families,” the Florida senator said. 

Johnson agreed, explaining the Democrats don’t want to be associated with Harris’ controversial policies. However, he said, “we can guarantee you that if they’re re-elected and Harris becomes president, they will vote with her virtually 100% of the time.”

The Harris campaign did not immediately provide comment to Fox News Digital.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub

“Impeachable conduct.”

“The totality of the corrupt conduct uncovered by the Committees is egregious.” 

“A concerted effort to conceal President Biden’s involvement in the family’s influence peddling scheme.”

These are the findings of a trio of House committees – led by Republicans – into the conduct of President Biden. It’s the final report of the GOP’s impeachment inquiry into Mr. Biden. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., initiated the inquest verbally last summer, trying to quash an uprising from his right flank. The House finally formalized the probe through a roll call vote in December.

BIDEN COMMITTED ‘IMPEACHABLE CONDUCT,’ ‘DEFRAUDED UNITED STATES TO ENRICH HIS FAMILY’: HOUSE GOP REPORT

Note that many Republicans wanted any impeachment investigation wrapped up by the start of last fall, not a couple of months before the 2024 election.

“Republicans have worked to impede and obstruct any effort to investigate Mr. Trump’s actual and proven corruption, including his unconstitutional receipt, while Commander-in-Chief, of millions of dollars from foreign governments that sought, and often received, favors from his Administration,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, in his own “counter” report. 

House Republicans released their 292-page report hours before the president was scheduled to speak to the Democratic convention in Chicago.

The document argues that Mr. Biden’s conduct warranted sanctions, saying his “flagrant abuse of office is clear: impeachment by the House of Representatives and removal by the Senate.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., encouraged “all Americans to read this report.” But besides thanking the committees for their work, Johnson didn’t signal there would be a vote on impeachment or imply that the House Republican leadership brass would entertain such a possibility. 

That’s because, at this stage, a prospective vote to impeach President Biden would likely fail on the floor.

Why? It’s about the math. There are at least a dozen House Republicans who oppose impeachment. One senior House GOP leadership source characterized a vote now as “moot.”

Fox is told Republicans soured further on impeachment when President Biden decided against seeking reelection. Plus, Mr. Biden only has five more months before the end of his term. Moreover, a vote on impeachment would put moderate Republicans from swing districts in a bind as the GOP tries to maintain its slim majority. Trotting out a vote on impeachment – just to have a vote on impeachment at this stage – would likely produce a loss on the floor. Democrats could then boomerang the failed impeachment vote on those vulnerable Republicans. Democrats would underscore how Republicans tried for more than a year to impeach President Biden. And it culminated in a failed vote on the floor.

POLITICAL PARALLELS BETWEEN 1968 AND 2024 AS THE DEMOCRATS RETURN TO CHICAGO

A botched impeachment vote would undercut the Republicans’ report itself and constitute an unforced error for the GOP.

It would also mean Republicans may have placed the emphasis on the wrong syllable – just before the election. Mr. Biden’s issues should be old news to Republicans. But focusing on President Biden, right or wrong, is not where the GOP needs to spend its time. Anything tied to impeachment simply steals the spotlight from the narrative Republicans are trying to craft about Vice President Harris. Republicans are still trying to define Harris. Backpedaling to President Biden diminishes that strategy. 

US President Joe Biden during the White House Creator Economy Conference in the Indian Treaty Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. Biden said prices are still too high, though underlying US inflation eased for a fourth month on an annual basis in July. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

If House Republicans truly want to impeach the president – and do it by the book – they would likely need at least another public hearing or two. That would also entail a “markup” session by the Judiciary Committee before sending the matter to the House floor. 

The measure would then go to the House Rules Committee. Then the floor for debate and vote.

And how many articles of impeachment could the GOP engineer for President Biden? One? Two? Four?

COMMENTATOR ON LEFT-LEANING SQUAWK BOX BLASTS DEMS FOR HAVING CLINTON AT DNC

The House impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas earlier this year, slapping him with two articles of impeachment: breaking the law and breaching the public trust.

The House levied a singular article of impeachment against former President Trump in 2021 for “incitement of insurrection” after the riot at the Capitol.

In 1998, the House Judiciary Committee prepared four articles of impeachment for former President Clinton after his affair with Monica Lewinsky. The House only approved two articles, lying under oath and obstruction of justice. The House rejected the other articles.

House Republicans will read and consider the impeachment report over the remainder of the congressional recess. Expect some internal debate when House Republicans first meet in a GOP Conference meeting on the morning of September 10.  

But just because House Republican leaders don’t want the House to tangle with impeachment doesn’t mean there won’t be pressure to do so. It’s possible there could be an attempt by hardline conservatives to force a vote on the floor. Fox is told that Republican leaders are bracing for that possibility when the House returns. A rank-and-file Republican member could compel a vote on impeachment via a “privileged” resolution. Such specialized resolutions must come to the floor right away or within two legislative days. Democrats would likely move to table or kill the resolution. Republicans are then placed in the dubious position of voting against tabling the resolution to bring it to the floor – or voting to kill it.

Former President Bill Clinton.  (GEORGE BRIDGES/AFP via Getty Images)

One senior House Democratic source even speculated to Fox that since it was doubtful the House could impeach President Biden, maybe Democrats wouldn’t try to table impeachment. They’d leave that up to Republicans. Imagine this scenario: Republicans moving to table their own impeachment measure. That would certainly slather some egg on the face of the GOP.

But that’s the least of the problems for Republicans. A vote to table the impeachment resolution is one step removed from actually voting on impeachment itself. A failure to table the resolution prompts the House to vote, up or down, on impeachment itself. A vote where Republicans reject impeachment – after they talked about it for the better part of this Congress – looks ham-fisted. It also underscores the problem Republicans struggled with since early 2023 – under both McCarthy and Johnson: ultra-conservative members create headaches for the rest of the party. That includes fights over who should be Speaker to battles over government funding.

In its “conclusion” section of its report, the trifecta of House committees declare the President’s deeds amount “to impeachable conduct.” The committees add that it’s now up to the full House for “evaluation and consideration of appropriate next steps.”

Most Republicans don’t want to wrestle with the impeachment of an elderly president who is partly out the door. Especially as Republicans try to maintain a threadbare House majority – and as former President Trump faces a serious challenge from Vice President Harris. The macro politics of the 2024 election may dictate that impeachment dies quietly on the vine. But the micro politics of the House Republican Conference could suggest something else. 

The Democratic National Convention will mark many transitions, not the least of them a generational passing of the torch.

President Biden this week is effectively handing control of the party, and the 2024 presidential nomination, to Vice President Kamala Harris — an 81-year-old with decades in public life ceding the national stage to his 59-year-old protege.

Sunday night, on a less prominent stage, the party’s most ardent progressives stopped to recognize another leader and another transition: Several hundred people streamed into the auditorium at Rainbow PUSH headquarters to rain praise and affirmation on the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson.

Jackson is 82 and living with Parkinson’s disease. A year ago, he appeared frail and spoke only a few words as he formally stepped down as president of the organization he created in the 1970s (the PUSH is for People United to Save Humanity) as a force for civil rights and economic equality.

Sitting in a wheelchair, Jackson soaked in the celebration Sunday night from the front of the auditorium where he had so many times urged on his followers. For more than three hours, he received a constant stream of admirers who said they had been trained and inspired by him over the decades. All the while, prominent Democrats spoke from the stage.

From Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), to the Rev. Al Sharpton, to independent presidential candidate Cornel West, they agreed: Jackson and his work as a groundbreaking Black presidential candidate in 1984 and 1988 sowed the political field for the eventual blossoming of other Black leaders, including Harris.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) was the first of half a dozen left-leaning members of the House to say their careers might not have happened but for the inspiration of Jackson, who was born in Greenville, S.C., became a lieutenant to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and launched his rights crusades in Chicago.

“He made sure that every single person had a place to stand. Everybody was somebody,” Jayapal said, echoing Jackson’s signature “I am somebody” refrain. She mentioned all the groups Jackson welcomed into his organization — multiple races, ethnicities, LGBTQ individuals, farmworkers and more. “And don’t forget that civil rights and economic justice were deeply intertwined, and nobody, nobody made that argument better than the Rev. Jesse Jackson.”

“We stand on your shoulders, Rev. Jesse Jackson,” Jayapal said to resounding applause. “For every elected official we will see on that [convention] stage for the next several days, we are here on your shoulders. We are here because you laid the path for us.”

The Nation, a venerable magazine of America’s political left, sponsored the Jackson celebration. Publisher and former editor Katrina vanden Heuvel carried a printed copy of the 1988 editorial in which the magazine endorsed Jackson. She noted that he had been an early voice for decreasing the size of the U.S. military and shifting the savings into domestic programs. Vanden Heuvel called Jackson “a man of peace and a great citizen of the world.”

Many of those on stage, including Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), spoke of how they had followed Jackson since their youth, galvanized into lives of public service by Jackson’s ringing speeches at the 1984 and 1988 Democratic conventions.

In 1988, Khanna recalled, Jackson had said he would not be content to be a small boat, plying the waters in a safe harbor; that he was intent on being out in a big boat, in the open ocean of the world’s great challenges, like apartheid in South Africa and economic injustice in America.

Jackson accumulated more delegates in the 1988 race than any other candidate except Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, the governor of Massachusetts, who would go on to a resounding loss to George H.W. Bush. Two opponents who won fewer delegates than Jackson that year: then Sen. Joe Biden and future Vice President Al Gore.

Jackson’s ringing oratory to the delegates at that year’s Democratic convention built with the cadences and rhythm of his years as a Baptist preacher. No one listening that night, at the Omni in Atlanta, would have mistaken what they heard for a concession speech.

“I’m tired of sailing my little boat, far inside the harbor bar,” he said near the end of the address. “I want to go out where the big ships float, out on the deep where the great ones are. And should my frail craft prove too slight for waves that sweep those billows o’er, I’d rather go down in the stirring fight than drowse to death at the sheltered shore.”

“We’ve got to go out, my friends, where the big boats are.”

By the time Jackson concluded, roaring “Keep hope alive!” once, twice … four times, Democratic delegates were rhapsodic. Some wept.

When he spoke, Sharpton described Jackson’s remarkable rise, “born in the Deep South, in the back of the bus, and growing to be a world leader.” He credited Jackson with creating the language still spoken by progressives, particularly Black leaders.

Some might say that Jackson, laid low by disease, “can’t walk like he used to and talk like he used to,” Sharpton said.

His voice rising, the MSNBC commentator suggested those people would be wrong. “I want you to know that every time a Black opens their mouth and talks about hypocrisy, Jesse Jackson is talking!” he shouted, as the crowd jumped to its feet. “Every time we march, Jesse Jackson is marching!”

Applause and shouts of affirmation drowned out Sharpton’s conclusion. A video screen flashed on Jackson, a small smile breaking his lips.

More than 90 minutes later, the crowd had thinned. A moderator from the Nation hinted that Jackson might speak. All eyes trained on the front of the Rainbow PUSH auditorium and a hush fell. But no words came.

Soon, a platoon of Jackson aides pushed his wheelchair to a waiting van, which rolled away slowly into the Chicago night.